Gambling is fun. Being able to pay for a perceived advantage is fun. Not everyone cares about total fairness in games and there is something inherently attractive about the chance to win something rare. These are just some of the facts of psychology. People are like this and if isn't the end of the world. Companies would be able to take advantage of this for profit if people didn't honestly enjoy this stuff on some level.
Gambling is fun. Being able to pay for a perceived advantage is fun. Not everyone cares about total fairness in games and there is something inherently attractive about the chance to win something rare. These are just some of the facts of psychology. People are like this and if isn't the end of the world. Companies would be able to take advantage of this for profit if people didn't honestly enjoy this stuff on some level.
That was the argument that was said to me in response to the whole Shadow of War/NBA/Forza/Battlefront controversy with loot boxes. To cut a long, long argument short: I am against loot boxes in paid-for AAA games, and in fact the only one who was in the group conversation, and everyone else were okay with loot boxes. However, a collective agreement by them concluded that loot boxes are good and that they are fine with it because "life isn't fair" and that they PREFER people to buy P2W loot boxes for their advantage because "it's more satisfying to kill them knowing they have an advantage over me".
Am I out of touch here or is this it? Are [P2W] loot boxes in $60 AAA games here to stay now? When people are saying to me they LIKE loot boxes like this, and I bring up how they could have been free cheat codes or if tournaments and real life events like a football match introduced unfair elements, how that fairs against their argument, they call me out for being ridiculous. For instance, I said, if life isn't fair then would they be okay if goalkeepers paid referees to shorten their goal length as this is P2W and it would make them satisfied having scored a goal in a net that is shorter than their own one. I also said what if tournaments with cash prizes allowed its participants to buy loot boxes over other players for an instant advantage, and at that point, I was thrown with insults and being called ridiculous etc and some of them left.
Is this what the games industry is now? It seems like loot boxes are here for fucking good.
4.) Only gamers could manage to become anti-consumer.
Complex motives
Actually, pretty simple motives: $$$
Thanks for contributing to the cancer in gaming known as loot boxes.
Here's my defense: This is better than the alternative, which is $80-$90 games or fewer games.
Which is why we don't regulate the sale of cocaine even a little bit. Because the way our minds work says cocaine is fun, and because companies should absolutely be able to exploit this weakness if they find it. It is their right to take advantage of this for profit.
Theres alot of things people do that they dont enjoy. Gambling and drug abuse being at the top of the list.
Are you actually equating playing videogames for fun to chemical dependency now?
Why do loot boxes provide such a dark compulsion? Psychologists call the principle by which they work on the human mind 'variable rate reinforcement.' "The player is basically working for reward by making a series of responses, but the rewards are delivered unpredictably," says Dr Luke Clark, director at the Center for Gambling Research at the University of British Columbia. "We know that the dopamine system, which is targeted by drugs of abuse, is also very interested in unpredictable rewards. Dopamine cells are most active when there is maximum uncertainty, and the dopamine system responds more to an uncertain reward than the same reward delivered on a predictable basis."
What's more, the effect of variable rate reinforcement is very persistent. Psychologist B.F. Skinner conducted trials during the early 1930s in which he conditioned animals to respond to certain stimuli in closed chambers that became known as Skinner Boxes, and showed that even when the rewards were removed, the subject would continue responding for sometimes hundreds of trials, trying to recreate the circumstances in which it got its reward before.
"Modern video games then amplify this idea by having many overlapping variable ratio schedules," says Clark. "You're trying to level up, advance your avatar, get rare add-ons, build up game currency, all at the same time. What this means is that there is a regular trickle of some kind of reinforcement." Whether you're watching your XP climb up to the next level in Overwatch, or you're collecting scraps in Battlefield 1 by breaking down skins, there's a constant sense of reward leading to reward.
The clever—or insidious—bit is how a loot box is wired into a game, and how it doles out its baubles, keeping a player on the knife-edge between feeling hungry and feeling rewarded. One such system is Battlefield 1's Battlepacks. Standard Battlepacks are earned by playing multiplayer matches. They used to be randomly awarded, but they recently switched to an Overwatch-like progression bar system for more regular drops. Each one is a guaranteed weapon skin or one of a number of pieces of a unique weapon. So that would seem satisfying, if it wasn't for the scrap system.
You can stop acting stupid. Unless it's not an act. But regardless, you have no way of knowing what the loot boxes will give you. Pretty simple concept, but I can understand if that's too difficult for you to grasp.Shockingly your overwatch lootcrate bought you items for use in Overwatch....?
Are you actually equating playing videogames for fun to chemical dependency now?
Gambling is a form of illness for many, just like drug abuse. Chemical dependency and gambling are pretty linked in the brain in some ways.
Yup. Once you've established an rng scheme for content delivery you don't have to pitch actual products anymore, nor are you limited to one sale per customer/piece of content. Taking a peek at gaming in 2017 makes CEOs across the entertainment industry rather wet I'm sureI'd say more than anything the latest trends and moves are more about risk management for the companies. I also don't really mind loot boxes that much, I usually play plenty if its a game I'm invested in and unless it's an egregious offender, I never even feel inclined to buy a loot box. That being said it's allowed a lot of companies to effectively change their content releases to focus primarily on loot boxes and the cosmetic or otherwise items within them.
Destiny, Overwatch etc. Are more focused on creating content to go into their loot packs, than actual content to play. When it's brought up, people defend it by saying "Well the content is free so". No, it's really not, it's just been subsidized in a more profitable way. It also works out that many consumers prefer it, so that's good. But it doesn't give them an excuse to basically not care about putting out real content, especially when they keep stretching out games/milking them for longer and longer.
From a thread I created a while back, feel like it's pertinent here.
Now it's just changed to the same thing, supplemented by loot crates. But has gotten worse when it comes to actually having to provide real content, because their income as time progresses is tied not as much to additional game sales, but to microtransactions. So selling premium or newer content isn't really the incentive anymore, well it is, but just enough to keep people coming back so they pay out of the newest set of loot crate stuff.
First defense is utter garbage, second I would totally be fine with.
In Overwatch you can bypass the loot boxes and just buy skins outright.- I want the Witch Mercy skin, in order to do so I need to keep grinding so I can get lootboxes, which does not actually guarantee me the skin I want. I can buy more lootboxes with real cash, but once again this does not actually guarantee me the Witch Mercy skin, only the chance of getting it.
vs.
- I like someone's podcast/writing/YouTube videos, so I contribute a few dollars a month to support them.
How is this comparable? Yes, in both cases it's a small group subsidizing content for a greater audience, but there's a huge difference in how lootboxes are implemented (randomized content designed to take as much money from players as possible) vs. Patreon, which is essentially just a donation service.
Are you actually equating playing videogames for fun to chemical dependency now?
Nah.
If all the DLC/Season pass/ loot box stuff didn't exist games would most likely be $10-20 bucks more expensive again.
I'm not equating playing videogames to chemical dependency. I'm drawing a comparison between regulation towards one potentially life-destroying addiction and another potentially life-destroying addiction.
Right, except - you're not.
There has never been a case where someone is in a financial black hole, but buy that one more loot crate, because that one more loot crate might be the big payout that gets them out of it - which is where actual gambling causes problems
Just to check, you're aware that you don't need to literally lose your last shirt button for your gambling (paying real money for an unknown 'reward') to be categorised as problematic, or even an addiction?
This must be one of the worst arguments ever made. "Life sucks, so games should suck too". Wow. How about no?
The ideal response to like 80% of "people told me this thing" threads.People are dicks, news at 11
Wipeout HD did this for a time, people didn't like it. The free downloadable version of Psi-Ops did something like that as well.I'm actually surprised no AAA game has gone the Google route and added advertisements before every multiplayer match or during loading screens. I mean Google seems to do pretty well with that model. You could then even sell an "Adblock" as a microtransaction: Don't want to watch ads? Give us 10$ and the next ten matches won't have ads!
Compulsive behaviours are compulsive behaviours, and occur in literally every hobby.
Are there wide swathes of people no longer able to play any videogames without a lootbox component being present?
You aren't speaking about specific cases of "problematic" behaviour - you are saying all lootboxes are inherently problematic, and further comparing that - entirely frivolously - to chemical dependencies which are not psychological in nature.
e:
And this "People spend a lot of money on a thing they enjoy! Thats terrible! Wont someone think of the children!" attitude to prop up the "I don't like thing others do" argument actually being made has plagued videogames since before they were videogames, with the ruination of youths and the evil spectre of pinball
They are not merely problematic, they are villainy.
Using basic psychology to make a product appealing is a fundamental part of a vast swathe of jobs.
It seems a bit rich to single out lootboxes as any more egregious than marketing in general, or even game design in general.
Its ludicrous to suggest its villainy.