The Gaming Industry At This Moment

[cyberjim2000]

Maybe you guys are sick of hearing about lootboxes in games like Shadow of Mordor and Battlefront II but I'm kinda curious what you guys think. Is it out of hand or has everyone making it a bigger deal than it really is? To me, it feels like we've been heading toward this road ever since the Horse Armor DLC was announced.

 

[Master_Craig]

Annoys me a little.

I don't mind how Blizzard does it, e.g. you get loot boxes, you get cosmetic stuff. If you want to pay for it with real money, that's fine. Everything you receive does not give you some form of advantage over other players, aside from looking cooler, or shitter depending on your point of view (e.g. skins).

I don't like how some games (like Shadows of War and Battlefront II) incorporate loot boxes with items that make you better in-game, and these loot boxes can be acquired by paying with real money, so almost a "pay to win" or "pay for advantage" formula. I don't like that.

I also don't like how the game will have two forms of currencies... one currency is earned in-game, the other currency can only be accumulated by spending real money. In Shadows of War, you need gold pieces to get certain loot chests, the better ones, however, you need to pay with real money in order to get said gold. Seems really low.

 

[MattAY]

Yeah I don't like it at all - like Craig says if it's just cosmetic then no harm done, but adding an advantage to some players can be frustrating to non-paying players. If it effected me too much I'd be put off and stop playing.

But that's the way of the gaming world today I guess. Us old folks have gotta get used to it! In the end its your personal decision to pay, if you're that bothered about getting the best shit then so be it - pay up brudda!

 

[Longo_2_guns]

I don't mind lootboxes. Even the Battefront type doesn't bug me, because the biggest advantages were all of 20% more and you have to play the game to equip more than one. Doesn't bug me anymore than the dumb unlock systems where the more you play, the better guns you get (which makes zero sense, since it means that players who know the game will ALWAYS beat players who are just starting).

What I do mind is people who buy lootboxes, because they're all idiots. Like, I hate to go back to my old argumentative, asshole ways, but I legitimately think it's sad, especially people who buy the massive $40 packs. I get that people can spend their money on whatever they like, and I get that people don't have a lot of time to invest, but being poor really puts things into perspective for me. For that price, you could have bought eight indie games, 60 beers, 140 sodas, 40 loaves of bread, a tank of gas, a lap dance, two baseball tickets, or almost another AAA game. But you instead spent it on unlockables that you could get for free anyway? And if you don't have long to play anyway, is the extra unlocks going to make your short time playing it that much better?

Now I'm a tiny bit of a hypocrite, because I spent about $10 on TF2 items. But considering by that point I had made over $200 selling items and had over 1000 hours in it, and it was stuff you couldn't get just by playing, I think it's fair.

 

[Madster]

Forza 7 came out and has lootboxes.

Suddenly the VIP rewards are massively scaled back, many of the cars have had a massive price increase and the first patch for the game solved 0 of the massive performance issues and bugs, and instead blocked the easy money making exploits.

Fuck lootboxes and fuck any developer who puts such trash in their games. This industry needs another crash and it needs it now.

 

[Paul Tamburro]

In theory, I don't mind loot boxes. I had no problem with how they were handled in Overwatch, and if having cosmetics locked behind them meant that Blizzard would keep churning out free map / hero updates then that's fine by me. Personally, I don't think I've played a game where they've been implemented and detracted from the overall experience.

HOWEVER! Judging from EA's initial stance with Battlefront 2, they could well have headed down an anti-consumer path if everyone didn't kick up a fuss about it. I think now that enough fuss has been made, we won't see another publisher attempt the Battlefront 2 pay-to-win deal that was suggested in its beta. I think it's good that people are still annoyed about it, because I think this will be off-putting for the publishers who were eyeing up the idea of P2W loot boxes in their games. But honestly, I think the battle's already been won here.

 

[Daddio]

I can't buy a game that has loot boxes for anything other than cosmetics. I think the idea of having random cosmetic loot drops can add a simple yet fun (when you finally get that outfit for your favorite Overwatch character for example) addition to many games ... but as soon as they turn into ability / advantage situations I nope right out. If a game is being retailed at full market price, there is no fucking way they should have additional content in the form of randomized loot boxes. On the flip side, if a game is structured and marketed as a play to win type of game then I really have no issues with it as I know before buying it what I'm getting into.

It's bad enough games are being released with 3-4+ different variances (standard, ultimate, deluxe, ultimate deluxe, digital, digital ultimate, digital ultimate deluxe ... etc ... etc ... etc) PLUS on top of that they can have $40+ 'DLC' packs that start rolling out a month or two after the initial release. When clearly the content was removed from the finished product, just so it can be repackaged in increments. I honestly miss legit expansion packs of the olden days. Yeah, you'd pay but fuck, you knew it was all new content brought to life.

Bring me back to the days when games were released as stand alone masterpieces. Not this fish hook half released games with $100 of post initial purchase costs.

Fuck. I get mad just thinking about this shit. Lol.

 

[COMaestro]

I have no issue with cosmetic drop boxes. Or competitive games where any stat boosts can be turned off in the options, like Injustice 2 (which seemed to be the default the times I did play online). I also don't mind them much if there is a method of earning the currency needed to unlock them by playing. Anything that demands actual money, though, I find a bit repulsive. If it's a F2P game, then sure, no biggie, but for a normal $60 AAA release game, hell no, you've already got my money, you aren't going to get more by trying to nickel and dime me to death.

 

[sli]

Pay to win is not okay. I wouldn't buy or play this game.
I love cosmetic customization in games, and RNG loot adds incentive to play the game.
Loot boxes are fine, as long as they can be bought with purely in-game currency.
Real money paid-for loot boxes are alright, as long as cost of loot boxes using in-game currency is not inflated to make you want to buy boxes with real money.
However, real money purchases should not be loot boxes and direct items, since I am spending extra money, not playing the lottery.
Free to play games negates all arguments, and the publisher can do whatever they want, since you are not paying to play the game, and nobody is forcing you to play the game.
DLC should be extra and ideally cross-media, things not meant to be in the game universe, like perhaps a Sonic skin when Mario chucks his hat at a hedgehog.
Expansions should be substantial, and not called DLC. Otherwise it just feels like withdrawed content from what should be a complete package/game. Season passes are complete bullshit.

 

[The_bad_who]

I can't say that it bothers me at all to be honest. I feel like companies are making money off of gamers for a while and in other industries as well. Cranking up prices and having more useless stuff to sell, is pretty much how we, consumers, made things by buying them in the first place. We are partly to blame for this situation for we fell into the traps of those companies. Nintendo has been surfing the "rarity" wave for a while to justify their products being more expensive, EA keeps on putting micro transactions wherever they can dream of, Lootboxes and half assed DLC coming out for incomplete games etc. We've been watching the industry burn for a while now and most of us just turned our heads.

For my parts, I've never paid a single dollar on add-ons except when I can really make sure they are worth it. Expansions like Fallout 4's Far Haror or Stand alone games like Uncharted The Lost Legacy or Infamous First Light. Even for mobile games I've been playing for years, I'm basically a "freemium", but that never stopped me from enjoying the game.

Yes, pay to win sucks, but it's a whole we dug and can't get out of now. By encouraging indie games and boycotting big companies, we might be able to change things, be this has to be a team effort. This has to be something we do together, as a united group...but I haven't seen the gamers being a group for a while now. Small pcokets of gamres, yes, but not THE gamers.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

It makes me laugh when the packs are basically buying a fully leveled character. Isn’t the point to play the game?

I have bought the occasional loot box. I see it as small investment in continued content development.