please end mystery boxes (loot boxes, glorified gambling)

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On the other hand, not selling loot boxes to people who are in the high risk group to be prone to gambling problems is very straight forward.

Those people would have to identify themself though, which is not very likely. The thing with those boxes is they are very different from actual gambling, there is no promise of a jackpot, there are just a bunch of things that are on average cheaper. The best use of the box would be to buy a few of them and get the missing pieces later.

What they exploit is our the lack of patience people have. Because it is fairly easy to get a few pieces of an armor set, but getting all of them. So impatience is what they exploit. The boxes provide neither exclusive nor prices tremendously different in value. In most gambling, even other games with different lootbox mechanics you usually have a bunch of ultra rare and sometimes even powerful items or exclusives.

Not to mention that predatory behavior is completly usual if you are selling things. Because you basically are a predator and the customer is your pray. The simplest example is that sweets in a discounter or in other locations are usually placed in must pass locations so that kids see them so they annoy their parents. Thats predatory and pretty common.

I'm not even sure if I want GGG to check my buying habits on their site to identify if I might be a gambling adict, because they gather a lot of information that way and they need to show them to someone who actually has the professional background to identify issues. They aren't a casino they can't just look at who is around. And those information on our buying habits are pretty damn valuable. Because while those lootboxes exploit some personality traits, there are a lot of other ways and collecting information is always a bit problematic. Of course they could limit the amount of boxes you can buy in certain amount of time, but my friend usually buys the boxes until he has all the MTX in there and the interesting part is although its more expensive then waiting on sales of the pieces he doesnt spend more than the pieces cost themself. There don't seem to be super low chances, its more that people are annoyed about the duplicates.

At a first glance it might seem plausible, Emphasy, but no, as already mentioned and even linked in this thread, scientific evidence so far supports the view that loot boxes and gambling are basically two sides of the same coin. The differences are largely superficial, the actual stimuli are mostly the same.

bumpino

The more I read on this issue , the more I find myself stuck in the same dilemma.
If loot boxes are immoral, and the game is designed to lower your inhibitions to buy them , than which is worse? If we do get rid of loot boxes, then those same people who cannot control their impulses will end up in the cash shop, really no better off.

Then you have the people who like to buy a few and take a chance. Sort of like passing by a slot machine and dropping in a few coins every now and then, just for fun. Win or lose , it puts a smile on their face. get rid of loot boxes on moral grounds and that will no longer be an option for these people. So what ends up happening is we get prohibition.

The game is akin to an amusement park like Disney world. It is designed to get you to spend money. It's fun!, but that's only because that gets you in the door with a wad of cash. They don't spend 5 million bucks on a roller coaster because they like you. They sell alcohol, arguably the most damaging substance ever known. They sell it because alcohol is super high margin, and the vast majority of people use it responsibly. I wasn't aware of this but do you know that 50% of all alcohol consumed in the USA is consumed by 10% of those who use it? So basically , on moral grounds alcohol should not be served in the park. Those who have and always would use it responsibly will just have to suck it up on behalf of the 10%.

I guess I am a little to libertarian, but I don't like the fact that people may be denied something they enjoy, because a minority of the population have addictive behavioral tendencies.

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Emphasy wrote:

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On the other hand, not selling loot boxes to people who are in the high risk group to be prone to gambling problems is very straight forward.

Those people would have to identify themself though, which is not very likely. The thing with those boxes is they are very different from actual gambling, there is no promise of a jackpot, there are just a bunch of things that are on average cheaper. The best use of the box would be to buy a few of them and get the missing pieces later.

Those people have already indentified themselves by playing Poe which is all about RNG.

And no, loot boxes are not different from actual gambling. Loot boxes are gambling, and trying to frame it otherwise is either ignorant or dishonest.
Read the thread and you will see why.

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Xtorma wrote:

The more I read on this issue , the more I find myself stuck in the same dilemma.
If loot boxes are immoral, and the game is designed to lower your inhibitions to buy them , than which is worse? If we do get rid of loot boxes, then those same people who cannot control their impulses will end up in the cash shop, really no better off.

What is the dilemma exactly? If a cash shop is immoral It's still worse to have both a cash shop and loot boxes than just have a cash shop.

The notion that the same people would lose the same money either way is laughable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Please stop.

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Sickness wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

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On the other hand, not selling loot boxes to people who are in the high risk group to be prone to gambling problems is very straight forward.

Those people would have to identify themself though, which is not very likely. The thing with those boxes is they are very different from actual gambling, there is no promise of a jackpot, there are just a bunch of things that are on average cheaper. The best use of the box would be to buy a few of them and get the missing pieces later.

Those people have already indentified themselves by playing Poe which is all about RNG.

And no, loot boxes are not different from actual gambling. Loot boxes are gambling, and trying to frame it otherwise is either ignorant or dishonest.
Read the thread and you will see why.

Hmm, it appears I may be down with the Sickness. :)

Hope that's not too disturbing to some of you playing the game...

There are things I love about this game. There are things I hate about this game.

These kinds of threads remind me of the things I hate the most about this game. Which is probably the reason some fans feel the need to defend this predatory practice so vehemently: They think GGG's reputation as a player-friendly gaming company is at stake here.

You're goddamn right it is. "Reaping what you sow" and all that.



Happy new year, everyone.

Yea well. I think that's about it anyways. Plenty for me to think about , and loot boxes are not going anywhere anyway, regardless of a persons moral stance.

The moral scale spans from the degenerates to the self righteous, and as long as that is the case, consensus will be extremely difficult to achieve.

GGG's gambling system is already illegal under several current country regulations. I expect they'll adapt so that lootboxes become invisible for europe soon.

For a while GGG was the model of what a gamedev studio should be - amazing monetization, dedication to the community. But they had that blight of lootboxes dragging it all down, and then added another one by selling out to Tencent.

I think the latter is actually worse than the lootboxes, eventually Tencent will drop the 'independent studio' farce and we'll have chinese style monetisation up the wazoo.