Looty & "Keep"?
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Loot boxes, eh? What bastards.
Something that started to find success in Fifa Ultimate Team, various mobile games, and Overwatch is now something seemingly every major western publisher wants a part of. We've had the full gamut of implementations, from it being the first thing you're asked about in a game (hiya, Halo 5) to something that's patched in later to an already successful game a bit lighter, and doesn't really impact on play (Rocket League).
Bit of a Current Issue these last few weeks given their popping up in games like Shadow of War, Forza 7, and the Star Wars Battlefront 2 beta. Looking like it won't go away, as long as there's people willing to go down that expensive rabbit hole. You've also now got devs getting shine off websites for stating they WON'T have it in their game, which is a bit weird. But shows you how far it's came.
What's your view? Obviously, each game is different but how do you see it now, and how do you see it going forward? Have you yourself bought any? Did you get value out of it? Or did you get burned? Is it gambling?
Anyway, keep it civil. -
I've never encountered one but kill them all and burn them to the ground.
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Seems most here are specifically talking about paid for loot boxes in traditional retail console / pc titles, rather than the more trad home of loot boxes, FTP.
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Thought I’d move this here:
poprock wrote:Yossarian wrote:There’s a reason why they were searching for extra revenue streams in the first place.
Yes, because we live in a capitalist society.
I get where you’re coming from, but correlation is not causation in this case. Businesses are always looking for more ways to make more profit, especially large ones and ones with shareholders.
Yes and no. We’re all aware of the fact that budgets for games these days are huge compared to what they were 30 years ago, we’re also aware that the sticker price on new games has barely shifted in those 30 years, failing to even move with inflation.
Obviously there’s a larger market now, but I’m not sure that it’s increased by enough to offset the above.
Devs have got to eat. -
Aye, agreed … but I’m saying that even if games cost triple what they do now then the publishers and developers would still be looking into new ways to bring in extra revenue. This would still be happening. -
Possibly, but I doubt it would be happening to this extent.
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Don’t think I’ve come across any of these “loot boxes”. Sounds like a problem.I am a FREE. I am not MAN. A NUMBER. -
nick_md wrote:Seems most here are specifically talking about paid for loot boxes in traditional retail console / pc titles, rather than the more trad home of loot boxes, FTP.
That is where most of the conversation is focused, but that isn't to say that FTP games are off the hook.
IAP in a free product is perfectly understandable, but there are good ways and bad ways to implement them. Dungeon Keeper is the poster boy for awful implementation that renders the game near unplayable unless you cough up quite a lot of cash.
I'm not sure I buy the 'devs are poor' argument either. The worst offenders are the major franchises from major publishers who are shifting millions and millions of units of these games, as well as selling season passes, sponsored content and extra DLC not included in the season pass, as well as these loot boxes.
It's a FTP mechanic in a full price title that already has a bunch of extra revenue streams added on. -
Not many franchises are selling millions and millions though, are they? An awful lot of them are only just breaking even or even losing money. Where’s the cash going to come from to invest in new and riskier propositions?
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Do those stupid bright engrams in Destiny count as loot boxes? They're shit. Probably. -
Yossarian wrote:Not many franchises are selling millions and millions though, are they? An awful lot of them are only just breaking even or even losing money. Where’s the cash going to come from to invest in new and riskier propositions?
Where are the riskier propositions though.
Dante is right the pool of games from the big pubs is getting more and more conservative and the looty shit is in these games the most aggressively. -
Kow wrote:Do those stupid bright engrams in Destiny count as loot boxes? They're shit. Probably.
They do and they are. Easily ignored too. -
Yossarian wrote:
They do and they are. Easily ignored too.Kow wrote:Do those stupid bright engrams in Destiny count as loot boxes? They're shit. Probably.
Ahhhhhh. Yes I agree, easily ignored cos that’s what I’ve done. I mean if there are retards out there who want to spend actually money on shit like that then let them continue being retarded and giving devs money that can hopefully be used to give more/better content and future games etc.
But I guess the whole argument is that it’s exploiting the retardedness of such retards?I am a FREE. I am not MAN. A NUMBER. -
Looks like this new Star Wars game is the most egregious example of this. I won't be going near it anyway.
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I miss going to the shops and buying a game. Opening the box on the bus home, reading and sniffing the manual.
Yes, sniffing. Then arriving home, making a cup of tea, putting the game in the machine and playing it. No installing, no day one patches, no updates, no lootboxes.
What has happened to our beloved hobby, our world, our lives? -
mistercrayon wrote:Yossarian wrote:Not many franchises are selling millions and millions though, are they? An awful lot of them are only just breaking even or even losing money. Where’s the cash going to come from to invest in new and riskier propositions?
Where are the riskier propositions though.
Dante is right the pool of games from the big pubs is getting more and more conservative and the looty shit is in these games the most aggressively.
Pretty much any of the platform exclusives on Xbox which are yet to see sequels, for example. Microsoft chucked a load of money at new IP at the start of this generation and there’s no sign of a Ryse, Sunset Overdrive or Quantum Break 2. Without other revenue streams to keep these types of titles afloat, they’ve been lost. Now that there are new revenue streams being found, we may start to see some investment in new games.
NB, I’m focussing on Xbox here as they have the smaller potential market despite the same costs of developing a new IP so things will be necessarily tougher on them than Sony. -
trippy wrote:I miss going to the shops and buying a game. Opening the box on the bus home, reading and sniffing the manual.
Yes, sniffing. Then arriving home, making a cup of tea, putting the game in the machine and playing it. No installing, no day one patches, no updates, no lootboxes.
What has happened to our beloved hobby, our world, our lives?
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The same really. Buying an add-on or unlocking something directly is one thing, buying a chance to get it is a whole different kettle of awful. Even with the former I'd have a spending limit for each player that unlocks everything/gives you unlimited credit once you get there.nick_md wrote:
How do you feel about their presence in FTP games?JonB wrote:It's a new thing to me as well. Guess I don't play those sorts of games. But it's clearly a rancid practice purely designed to get people to pay more money than they normally would for the extra bits they might want in a game. No idea why anyone would excuse/defend it. -
Aren't we getting forum loot boxes soon? With poses, avatars, signatures, new insults, etc.
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Can't help my shitposting, sorry.
Ahem. What I can add right now is, again, look at the big success' from the Eastern dev community this year. Nier, Persona, RE7, Yakuza. All making money, all without ridiculous budgets, all without microtransactions or boxes. DLC though.. Aye.
It is something that's been massively prominent in the mobile scene there, though. Gatcha and the like. Maybe they've not "the balls" to implement it into home console gaming. Maybe they're being pressured right now.
I dunno. Murky, murky waters right now. -
The market has grown massively though, which offsets a lot of that. Worth a few billion dollars in the 80s, it's now 100-130 billion.Yossarian wrote:Thought I’d move this here:
Yes and no. We’re all aware of the fact that budgets for games these days are huge compared to what they were 30 years ago, we’re also aware that the sticker price on new games has barely shifted in those 30 years, failing to even move with inflation. Obviously there’s a larger market now, but I’m not sure that it’s increased by enough to offset the above. Devs have got to eat.poprock wrote:
Yes, because we live in a capitalist society. I get where you’re coming from, but correlation is not causation in this case. Businesses are always looking for more ways to make more profit, especially large ones and ones with shareholders.Yossarian wrote:There’s a reason why they were searching for extra revenue streams in the first place. -
JonB wrote:Buying an add-on or unlocking something directly is one thing, buying a chance to get it is a whole different kettle of awful.
This feels like the crux of it, to me. Selling things to people is okay, but spending real money on in-game gambles feels a bit off. -
At Gav:
Not googling all of those, but Nier has apparently sold 1.5m copies according to Wikipedia, which doesn’t sound like a lot to me. Perhaps it has been profitable, perhaps not, but it is published by Squeenix who are getting money from MTs in a FF online game if I’m not mistaken? -
Tying us into the recent Visceral news, fans got a press release thanking them when Nier sold 1m copies, and was hailed as the Game That Saved Platinum.
Dead Space 3 was supposed to sell 5m before it was counted as a success. Visceral now don't exist.
It's sad, it's mental, but that's where we're at. -
Squeenix did though say they wanted something silly like 15m copies of FFXV sold, though. That was a lol.
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monkey wrote:
The market has grown massively though, which offsets a lot of that. Worth a few billion dollars in the 80s, it's now 100-130 billion.Yossarian wrote:Thought I’d move this here:
Yes and no. We’re all aware of the fact that budgets for games these days are huge compared to what they were 30 years ago, we’re also aware that the sticker price on new games has barely shifted in those 30 years, failing to even move with inflation. Obviously there’s a larger market now, but I’m not sure that it’s increased by enough to offset the above. Devs have got to eat.poprock wrote:
Yes, because we live in a capitalist society. I get where you’re coming from, but correlation is not causation in this case. Businesses are always looking for more ways to make more profit, especially large ones and ones with shareholders.Yossarian wrote:There’s a reason why they were searching for extra revenue streams in the first place.
It offsets some, I’m not sure how much. I suspect that budgets have grown by a lot more than 50 times in the past 30 years, just look at team sizes and lead times for major new releases now. When I was a kid I always spent a few minutes sitting through credits after the end of a game, not any more. -
Yossarian wrote:Not many franchises are selling millions and millions though, are they? An awful lot of them are only just breaking even or even losing money. Where’s the cash going to come from to invest in new and riskier propositions?
Why are such risks being made in the first place? If there isn't a market for $x million games, make them smaller, with less fidelity, and with fewer staff. If a game needs to sell 5 million to be profitable, and a company can close if it only hits 3 million, then why was the project approved in the first place?
If game prices need to rise to fund developers a fair working income and employment stability (note: developers, not exhorbitant marketing departments, inflated CEO options and shareholder dividends) then let prices rise to what is needed. Selling black-boxes containing trinkets with zero value is a scam."Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." ― Terry Pratchett -
JonB wrote:
The same really. Buying an add-on or unlocking something directly is one thing, buying a chance to get it is a whole different kettle of awful. Even with the former I'd have a spending limit for each player that unlocks everything/gives you unlimited credit once you get there.nick_md wrote:
How do you feel about their presence in FTP games?JonB wrote:It's a new thing to me as well. Guess I don't play those sorts of games. But it's clearly a rancid practice purely designed to get people to pay more money than they normally would for the extra bits they might want in a game. No idea why anyone would excuse/defend it.
Most players won't buy though, they save up their daily hard-currency that you get for free, then hit the lucky dip.
As for spending limit, that ain't ever gonna really happen is it, but the safety net feature I described in the general games thread goes some way to at least guaranteeing a top item at certain spend points:
- Guaranteed top drops ("guaranteed to get shiny car/gun/character or whatever on your Xth box/crate/pull if you have not received one. Receiving one resets your guarantee counter") -
That's a point - do console gacha systems offer ways to earn free currency to use the gacha? That's pretty standard in mobile.
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Vela wrote:Yossarian wrote:Not many franchises are selling millions and millions though, are they? An awful lot of them are only just breaking even or even losing money. Where’s the cash going to come from to invest in new and riskier propositions?
Why are such risks being made in the first place? If there isn't a market for $x million games, make them smaller, with less fidelity, and with fewer staff. If a game needs to sell 5 million to be profitable, and a company can close if it only hits 3 million, then why was the project approved in the first place?
Because companies and creative types like to take risks and the rewards can be huge.
If game prices need to rise to fund developers a fair working income and employment stability (note: developers, not exhorbitant marketing departments, inflated CEO options and shareholder dividends) then let prices rise to what is needed. Selling black-boxes containing trinkets with zero value is a scam.
Publishers know as well as we do what the reaction to across the board price rises would be. Lootboxes expose them to far less flack.
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