Comic for Friday 6/21 (Early High Res)
Literally a thing they said. XD
https://kotaku.com/ea-our-loot-boxes-are-actually-surprise-mechanics-that-1835662012
Comments (6)
Mmm... seems like it's the closest these strips have come to being R-rated so far. I'll just wait and see where the trend goes...
I'm amused that a hint of sex triggers your "R-rating" sense, but not the copious amounts of graphic violence and gore my comics have contained over the past 17 years XD
That remark from EA was just *begging* to be made into a comic. And here it is, Tim delivers! :)
Strictly speaking, loot boxes aren't really akin to gambling. They're much more akin to trading card games. You buy a pack, get something random from it, and *hope* it's one of the rare ones or one of the ones you're looking for or something. It absolutely roots itself in the same portion of the brain as gambling, though. TCGs also see the same behavioral patterns as loot boxes, with collectors obsessively buying and trying to complete their collection, third-party trading of rarer items, etc. Personally, I'm rather on the fence about loot boxes, and in particular the notion of banning or regulating them. On the one hand, the approach that EA and a few other companies have classically taken with them is hilariously abusive, and they've very rightfully started being called on their BS. But there *are* examples of it done right. Overwatch is a great example. You get plenty of boxes naturally just by playing the game, the boxes award purely cosmetic stuff, the natural cosmetics aren't really sub-par compared to the skins, and duplicates from the loot boxes award a currency you can use to selectively purchase the otherwise-loot-boxed items you're actually after. I've bought some of their boxes in the past (usually during events), but I don't feel any compulsion to do so, nor do I feel like I'm gimping myself by not buying them. So there are absolutely ethical ways to implement loot boxes. EA's isn't one of them, but they do exist. And those loot boxes allow a game to be monetized and thus long-term supported (like Overwatch) without other forms of microtransactions (like the F2P staple of purchasing bypasses of annoyances or time-sinks, which encourages the developers to *slather* their game with such annoyances and time sinks. Warframe is a great example of this). Banning them outright would either prevent games like Overwatch from hitting market, prevent them from being supported and developed as they are, or force them into an alternative monetization system that would almost certainly be worse on the players.
There are a few key differences: Trading cards tend to post the odds of getting certain types of cards; you have a good idea what your chances are. Second, you own trading cards. You can, you know, TRADE them. So if you don't have the rare one you need, you can try to obtain it through trading more lower value cards. Lootboxes are like gambling in that you put your money in, and if you don't get the "jackpot", that's it. Your money is just gone, and the only way to try to get the "jackpot" is to fork over more money. I agree with you that Loot Boxes are not inherently evil in every form, but they are often predatory, which is perhaps why they SHOULD be regulated. So they appear more in the context of Overwatch, and not in the context of a game like FIFA, for instance.
ROFL Spontaneous Penis Relocation....I love that.