13th November 2017, 8:23 PM
They were not invented this year, and were popularized at least by last year as you see with games like Overwatch, but the gaming trend of the year is the loot box. This exploitative idea takes the collectible card pack and brings it to the world of videogames, so instead of just getting items, or being able to buy them, you have the "privilege" of spending money on random chances for the item! Joy! You might get what you want, but you're far more likely to just be throwing your money away on nothing of note. It's bad stuff, but it has become popular because it works brilliantly. Some publishers have recently announced that look boxes make them more money than game sales, in fact, and given their exploding popularity this isn't too surprising.
So, seeing the potential money they can extract from their customers, the way every game implements loot boxes is different, but what most major game releases this year have in common is having a loot box system of some kind. Sometimes the boxes only contain cosmetic items, but sometimes they also contain items which directly affect play. Sometimes you can only get the boxes with real-money purchases, sometimes you can buy them or get them ingame... though they're almost always designed to make you want to spend that money, of course, and not rely only on the free ones. Etc.
There has been criticism of loot boxes from many gamers, though, for how they exploit people to get money out of them, for how they are basically gambling in that you spend money without knowing what you're getting for it, how they don't usually tell you the likelihood of getting any one particular reward and the good ones drop quite rarely, and more. These criticisms are, I would say, largely very accurate. Apart from the baseball cards I bought as a kid I've generally stayed away from random-draw gaming stuff myself, and playing Overwatch now has made me think about how this fundamentally really good game is being held back by its annoying loot box system. Why can't you just get money, to get the things you want with? I know, the answer is "because it makes Activision-Blizzard more money this way", but that does not make it okay or good game design! "Here's cool looking stuff, but you only have any chance of getting it if you throw a lot of money at us" is REALLY obnoxious game design and it hurts the game, as fun as it is to play. And this stuff is apparently in almost EVERYTHING now, Nintendo console games excepted... though with how they've now adopted microtransactions otherwise, I expect to see them soon in Nintendo games as well I imagine. Ugh.
On that note, I have been disappointed to see how enthusiastically Nintendo has gone for microtransactions. Oh, things like DLC addons to games are just fine, but then you have pure money-sinks like the Badge Arcade for 3DS... ugh! That thing exists just to take your money and give you nothing of note, because those badges sure aren't useful. I haven't spent anything in the Badge Arcade myself, but I'm sure many people have because of how few free plays you get, and that's too bad. At one point Nintendo was better than this, but not anymore sadly. Too bad.
So, seeing the potential money they can extract from their customers, the way every game implements loot boxes is different, but what most major game releases this year have in common is having a loot box system of some kind. Sometimes the boxes only contain cosmetic items, but sometimes they also contain items which directly affect play. Sometimes you can only get the boxes with real-money purchases, sometimes you can buy them or get them ingame... though they're almost always designed to make you want to spend that money, of course, and not rely only on the free ones. Etc.
There has been criticism of loot boxes from many gamers, though, for how they exploit people to get money out of them, for how they are basically gambling in that you spend money without knowing what you're getting for it, how they don't usually tell you the likelihood of getting any one particular reward and the good ones drop quite rarely, and more. These criticisms are, I would say, largely very accurate. Apart from the baseball cards I bought as a kid I've generally stayed away from random-draw gaming stuff myself, and playing Overwatch now has made me think about how this fundamentally really good game is being held back by its annoying loot box system. Why can't you just get money, to get the things you want with? I know, the answer is "because it makes Activision-Blizzard more money this way", but that does not make it okay or good game design! "Here's cool looking stuff, but you only have any chance of getting it if you throw a lot of money at us" is REALLY obnoxious game design and it hurts the game, as fun as it is to play. And this stuff is apparently in almost EVERYTHING now, Nintendo console games excepted... though with how they've now adopted microtransactions otherwise, I expect to see them soon in Nintendo games as well I imagine. Ugh.
On that note, I have been disappointed to see how enthusiastically Nintendo has gone for microtransactions. Oh, things like DLC addons to games are just fine, but then you have pure money-sinks like the Badge Arcade for 3DS... ugh! That thing exists just to take your money and give you nothing of note, because those badges sure aren't useful. I haven't spent anything in the Badge Arcade myself, but I'm sure many people have because of how few free plays you get, and that's too bad. At one point Nintendo was better than this, but not anymore sadly. Too bad.
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