What is your opinion on loot boxes?

>>383171036
a very clever form of stealth price discrimination that's great cause it lets me play more game content at other people's dime.

>>383171036
as long as they're the only microtransaction in a game AND they only contain skins then i'm all right. they're stupid and for people who want to literally waste money but as long as they don't turn the game in p2w then whatever

Gambling system for kids and retards

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ruined the idea of unlockables in all games to come.

And since people have been conditioned they're okay, they'll stick around forever.

>>383171150
>price discrimination
You do know price discrimination is when you sell goods and services to different people at different prices for any reason besides promotional event, right?
This does not, however, include location.

>>383171036
killed the value of master skins. Well, every skin lost its value.

Never cared for them.

Yesterday pokerstars introduced loot boxes and some kind of videogame mode for poker with powers and shit (like change your hole cards, what the fuck?). I'm not sure how to feel about it.

>>383171036
They're a great addition as long as they're not behind a paywall like CSGO, TF2 and Rocket League

>>383172208
Same shit happened with DLC/Expansions.
People are stupid.

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>>383171036
They're alright

>>383171036
Retarded garbage that ruins video games.

>>383171150
yeah except for when it's in a game that isn't free

>>383172228
It's indirect price discrimination. People who are willing to dump more money on the game are willing to do so.

>>383172951
No, it isn't.
I assume you meant to say "People who are willing to dump more money on the game will do so" which is not price discrimination in any possible way. In the real world, a person with more money can buy more of anything from any store unless they put a cap on that person's spending with shit like Limit: 1 per customer.

>>383171036
No direct advantages=Ok loot boxes
Direct advantages=Bad lootboxes

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>>383171036
better than valve's system by a long shot

>>383171036
Not a fan.

Don't mind blizzard ones, though, since they never contain anything useful or any advantages so I feel no desire to buy them. If other people want to pay to enable my free gameplay then I suppose that's fine with me.

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>>383171036

Microtransactions in all forms are cancer, but particularly in games that are mainly single player.

Once upon a time, the stuff in loot boxes would be a reward for finding a hidden secret, smashing a difficult dungeon or a difficult boss. There was a sense of reward and accomplishment.

It is hard to explain this in terms of modern gaming, because kids just don't have that anymore. They will never know the rush of finally getting a golden chocobo - they have been conditioned their entire life that good things come in paid boxes only with a very small chance to drop.

I can kinda forgive multiplayer only games where the items have only cosmetic effect as long as the game still rewards good play. CS:GO comes to mind. For MP games with dedicated servers - the choice is loot boxes or a subscription model.

But even these games are manipulating the fuck out of their player base. Valve openly talk about how their design choices were designed to better monetise players (TED talk on yt, can't be arsed finding it).

Microtransactions as a whole make me super depressed as an old gamer. Kids today are just cows to be milked - games are designed to be addictive and not fun, peoples emotions and manipulated so they buy useless crap. Games used to be about escaping your shitty life and entering a world without restraint - now every time you play a game you are reminded of how you can't afford that one item you need, or how your gun skin isn't as cool as the other guys skins.

People have enough of this shit in their real lives - I just want games to be fun again.

The HotS loot box is done correctly because you can easily get legendaries until you fucking got nearly all of them then it's hard to fucking get the ones you want. The Overwatch one is whatever. CSGO everything else is for autists like a certain big titty Korean streamer that sucks old men dick for money to spend on knives and skins

>>383171036
A very profitable business scheme, which by itself I wouldn't mind if blizzard would focus on making more game content than events. Paying 40-60 dollars for the game and seeing events more often than new maps or characters is very disheartening.

>>383171036
It's basically gambling and should probably be outlawed since most of these games are for kids.
And it really sucks because before you could pay (way too much) $10 for a skin in a game and now if you want that skin it could cost you $10 or it could cost you $300 because the only way to get it is out of the gambling box.

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>>383175485
Yeah, I agree. Microtransactions are killing gaming. It's sad to see them so normalized and accepted now.

>>383171036
Absolute cancer. Takes away any will I have to play a game if they're in it.

Microtransactions of any kind in a paid game are completely unacceptable. Full stop.

HotS current lootboxes are an objective upgrade from the previous system. Skin drops like mad and you can reroll.

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>>383171036
literally legal gambling for minors

Shit.
>voice lines
>sprays
>emotes
>icons
The literal only thing people want is skins, but they just add ten thousand pieces of trash to dilute the boxes

I got a bunch of nice cosmetic stuff for free so im okay with that

Worst of all the unlock systems. And on top of that, pair it with a cash shop only instead of paying for an item, you can pay or more CHANCES to get an item! Wow!

>>383171036
Cancer.
They're only there to make people spend cash, especially if you can't unlock them through normal play.
I mean, you could offer certain items for a price but that would mean you're missing out on money.
If you can introduce an element of RNG/chance then everything just comes down to the willingness of the customer opening their wallet.

Would you want to buy groceries through the chance of 'grocery boxes' or just directly buy it?

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Just as bad if not worse than dlc or season passes.

But now videogames are mainstream and the industry is being abused to shit, nothing will change until the inevitable 2nd videogame crash.

Blizzard and Valve are the worst offenders.

>>383171036
Tolerable in F2P games, specially if yo can trade the items like some MMORPGs and Valve games do. Pure cancer in B2P games.

Only game to do the formula correct so far is Heroes of the Storm. Otherwise pretty mediocre game.

They're unacceptable in buy to play games in my opinion, unless they can be earned at generous rate and without any of that "Buy this key to open this box, goy"

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>>383171036
Exploitative.
They prey upon people with predispositions for gambling addiction and other compulsive disorders.

They're designed to light up the pleasure centers in the brains of serial risk-takers and gamblers, to get them to keep buying more boxes so they can experience that thrill of the unknown and the joy of scoring something of apparent value.

Books have been written on how games abuse these people. Like 80% of the income for games with these kinds of microtransactions comes from "whales" with impulse control disorders.

>>383171036
Depends how its done they should ONLY and ever only be cosmetic. Overwatch is one of the better examples you get them pretty regularly and they are free to open you never have to buy them and eventually earn enough money from duplicates to buy desired skins. Although I really am not a fan of the holiday ones because unless you play very frequently you will probably have to buy some but Overwatch's content updates have all been free and microtransactions from lootboxes are definitely part of that.

Valve's system on the otherhand I absolutely hate having mandatory keys that costs $1.50 to open them and all the other shit that came with their system. Developers have even started copying it while I liked Killing Floor 2 implementing Valve style loot crates while the game was in early access was a fucking jew move.

valuable thread lads thanks a bunch

>>383171036
As long as the contents are cosmetic only, I'm fine with them.