That’s still orders of magnitude easier than figuring it out from first principles, and nowhere near arduous enough to excuse leaving the problems unaddressed.
Lootboxes aren’t “buying content.” Buying a game, is. Buying DLC, is. Gambling on a hat that’s already in the game you’re playing is plainly something different, and increasingly, that’s the only source of revenue.
This is not theoretical. We’re already in a stupid sci-fi future where four-billion-dollar games can be “”“free”“” and somehow convince people to spend thousands of dollars apiece on a deluge of random bullshit which is also allegedly free. And it’s not even possible to have a sane argument about this shit-show, because people pretend they don’t understand the thing all these games do.
I want video games to make money the way they did in 2008.
Do you have an opinion about that?
If it goes ‘then games would magically look like 2008 forever,’ stop.
If it goes ‘but then they’d make 2008 kinds of money,’ stop.
This is new. This is bad. This is spreading. We should stop it.
Forget the kids and ignore the odds. Any game taking real money is a scam.
(No that doesn’t mean buying games. No that doesn’t mean subscriptions. No that doesn’t mean expansions. No that doesn’t mean card games. No that doesn’t mean arcades. Jesus Christ, do people find a lot of ways to get mad about nonsense, whenever I say this.)
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money. Absolutely fucking nothing. All possible forms are abuse, built on how games by definition invent value for worthless elements that can be arbitrarily granted or withheld. That is what makes them games.
The business model is intolerable - and if we allow it to continue, there will be nothing else. It’s the dominant strategy. Your disgust and non-participation will never outweigh some tiny fraction of people getting taken for obscene quantities of real money in exchange for incrementing a variable. It’s in free mobile trash. It’s in $70 “AAA” flagship-franchise titles. It’s in single-player, multi-player, subscription MMOs - it’s in everything. There is zero incentive for them not to try robbing you like this. Companies that don’t rob you will make less money than companies that do.
Only legislation can fix this.
Ban the entire business model. (No that doesn’t mean games. No that doesn’t mean content. Jesus Christ, am I tired of dealing with pearl-clutching nonsense, just to say “fuck lootboxes.”)
Overt abuse gets disguised. It’s still abuse. All they’re getting better at is how deep the hooks can slide before people notice.
Content is the bait on this hook. All it’s doing is disguising the abuse. The abuse remains. The abuse is the entire point. The abuse is the only part that makes money.
This business model is a threat to the entire medium, and the only real solution is dead simple. We will be fine without it. We will only be fine, without it.