Cloudman said:
vivster said:
The problem isn't just the exploitative manner in which they are implemented. A loot box system is not something that just goes on top of everything. A game is shaped around them to entice people to spend real money. That means even if you don't care about loot boxes or simply ignore them you will still play a game that's worse than what it would be without loot boxes. That's the simple truth, to make loot boxes enticing you have to make the game as a whole worse so that people spend money to make it worth playing again. If loot boxes were actually fair or inconsequential they wouldn't exist because nobody would buy them.
Customization is a huge part of online gaming because it is very much a social experience and everyone wants to look their best or unique. Greedy publishers hide behind that fact because there are still people defending micro transactions and loot boxes as "just cosmetic". While they are hiding more and more content behind paywalls. And not just normal paywalls, but huge ones. Thanks to loot boxes you nowadays pay 10 or 20 or even more bucks just for a single item. Imagine public reactions if those were direct ingame purchases.
Loot boxes are way more insidious than just micro transactions. Remember how we hated those? And that's not even accounting for the fact that these companies are specifically targeting individuals with addictive personalities. At this point it stops being innocent and starts being just evil.
Not protesting it now means it's gonna get only worse.
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Well, I was only playing what little devil's advocate there is for loot boxes. I think they're terrible practices that shouldn't be in games. Although I do think it's a little sad when a solid game has to be punished because of something like loot boxes.
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Why shouldn't it be considered in a review? Games with loot boxes have been deliberately made worse. That sounds like something that should be considered. Loot boxes change the whole game.
A game consists of a lot more than just gameplay. And if a game wants a great score it should be great in all aspects. A high score means that all aspects should be high quality. Of course one aspect that's terrible will drag down the score.
