Loot boxes and microtransactions

[Chindie]

Ultimate Team makes EA an obscene amount of money, to the extent that FIFA these days is basically a package for Ultimate Team to be shipped in.

Unfortunately because it's such a money spinner all the other companies have looked to bring in similar mechanics, hence for a period every game had straight up loot boxes, and now that's morphed into boosts and 'timesaver' items (because they have made the games bigger timesinks to encourage purchases whilst putting a blanket of respectability over the top by saying you're getting more game time...).

The gaming industry has become increasingly toxic to its consumers.

[villa89]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

The gaming industry has become increasingly toxic to its consumers.

It's basically becoming a gambling industry. Without proper regulation the industry has just lost the run of itself which, when so much money is at stake, was inevitable.  It's just another case of lawmakers being about 20 years behind the current requirements.

[Chindie]

In many cases it has, certainly the headline grabbing, industry breakout successful stuff has firmly put itself in the gambling trough. Loot boxes just are gambling mechanics with a cigarette paper of difference in place, ticking the same boxes mentally, and they've flooded the industry because they make lots of money.

There's other things though that are less influenced by gambling but are as insidious. There's increasingly a growth of mechanics designed to encourage further purchases, pay to win stuff, things that in previous generations would have awarded players for achievements in the game now being locked behind paywalls, and now 'games as a service' quickly morphing into a way to produce less innovative (or even just complete and rounded) experiences in favour of drip fed shallow stuff designed to rope in players on the back of simple progression mechanics and FOMO hooks.

It's not everything, there's still quality stuff like God of War being made (a uniquely untoxic title in many ways), but everything is basically looking to in some draw ever more money for ever less effort.

[GarethRDR]

Simple solution is to have a 360 degree policy on loot-box heavy games, whereby the customer is allowed to present three indistinguishable envelopes at their local retailer in exchange for the game in question; one envelope contains cash equalling the price of the game, one contains cash equalling half the price of the game and one contains nothing. The retailer chooses which envelope they get after a shuffle.

Edited June 21, 2019 by GarethRDR

[NurembergVillan]

48 minutes ago, GarethRDR said:

Simple solution is to have a 360 degree policy on loot-box heavy games, whereby the customer is allowed to present three-thousand indistinguishable envelopes at their local retailer in exchange for the game in question; one envelope contains cash equalling the price of the game, one contains cash equalling half the price of the game and 2,998 contain nothing. The retailer chooses which envelope they get after a shuffle.

FTFY

[Hornso]

On 21/06/2019 at 21:20, NurembergVillan said:

I love Ultimate Team on FIFA.  I don't get to play the actual game much because of family commitments, but I can still interact by trading players etc.

The cash investment, though, in order to have a really competitive team is ridiculous.  I've not invested a penny and have a good team but I'm miles away from being able to afford, say, Ronaldo even if I sold my whole squad.

A few years ago, pre-kids, I got heavily involved in coin-buying for the game.  Whilst not allowed it was better for me than buying packs and hoping for the best.  Even so, my expenditure must have run into the hundreds over the course of each game.  It was madness.

If I'd spent the same on packs, though, I'd have been absolutely miles off the players/coins I got through cheating because the likelihood of packing a decent player is so low.

Get it all banned and find a fairer way to allow people to progress.  It's frightening the amount of cash some of these players must be spending.

 

[Straggler]

 

[desensitized43]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48908766

Quote

'The kids emptied our bank account playing Fifa'

Four children spent nearly £550 in three weeks buying player packs to play the Fifa football video game online on the family's Nintendo Switch console.

In Fifa, special players can be bought in packs, but the contents are only revealed after payment is completed.

The children's father, Thomas Carter, had bought them a single pack for around £8, and had not realised they had seen how he made the purchase.

Surprise mechanisms, eh?

SURPRISE! You're bank account is empty...

Fifa's Pegi rating really needs to be raised. 3+ is a joke.

[LakotaDakota]

Shit parenting = ban things... Take some damned responsibility for your own stupidity.

Firstly, If you have only got £500 in your bank should you really be buying a £300 console for your kids, & if you do buy them a console put some parental locks on it. They are there for a reason and rather unsurpsingly they actually stop kids doing this, who would have thought it...

You wouldn't give a 10 year old your bank card to go running around town with so why store the info completely unsecured on a console.

Completely aside from FIFA packs the pegi rating thing is a bit of an oddity. Many games get a pegi 12 or16 rating simply for having online capabilities at all as they can't really control what happens online but FIFA is one of those that seems to have slipped through the net a little

Edited July 11, 2019 by LakotaDakota

[Dante_Lockhart]

We got our lad an iPad for Christmas (He's 5). We've parental locked the shit out of it. Removed in-app purchasing as an option, and any new app downloads need to be approved through the wife as she gets a pop up on her phone every time. It's not hard to set up.

[Stevo985]

On 11/07/2019 at 21:43, LakotaDakota said:

Shit parenting = ban things... Take some damned responsibility for your own stupidity.

Firstly, If you have only got £500 in your bank should you really be buying a £300 console for your kids, & if you do buy them a console put some parental locks on it. They are there for a reason and rather unsurpsingly they actually stop kids doing this, who would have thought it...

You wouldn't give a 10 year old your bank card to go running around town with so why store the info completely unsecured on a console.

Completely aside from FIFA packs the pegi rating thing is a bit of an oddity. Many games get a pegi 12 or16 rating simply for having online capabilities at all as they can't really control what happens online but FIFA is one of those that seems to have slipped through the net a little

I do get the bad parenting part, but I think the point isn’t really about the money, it’s about the fact that lootboxes are essentially gambling and these cases prove that kids are getting hooked at pretty early ages into that kind of stuff. 

Whether it costs a parent a grand or £10 the principle is the same. 

[Chindie]

I'm not sure a game which has a fundamental mechanic which is literally gambling can morally be sold as suitable to 3 year olds. Regardless of whether there's parental controls.