The rise of loot crates and microtransactions in full price games is a really poor business practise and is a factor for my dwindling interest in Triple A games. I understand why these mechanics are in free-to-play games but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. The constant carving up of content for pre-order bonuses was bad enough, but to actively restrict the likes of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in a Star Wars game is absurd.

It’s frustrating because I like the concept of a random loot box both in games and in things like blind boxes IRL and I think they have a place. For those of you who played my recent EoFF RPG, that had loot boxes and that was my ideal model. I offered every item in the boxes separately so that it would work out cheaper if you get them in a box, but if you desperately wanted something you had the option to get it. From what I saw of player behaviour, people seemed to prefer the random boxes rather than paying for specific items.

There are even worse predatory practises looming on the horizon. I know Activision-Blizzard are the darlings of a lot of people here for games like Overwatch (which also has loot crates), but they are probably worse than EA at this point. They filed a recent patent for a game mechanic that works like this: The game notices you like using, say, sniper rifles, and it wants you to buy its premium expensive sniper rifle for real money. So it matches you up with players who not only have that sniper rifle, but are also of a much higher skill level of you. When that high skill player is done stomping you with their sweet gear, something along the lines of "xXSniperDude420Xx beat you using this super sweet mega sniper rifle. Press X to buy for $10" pops up at the end of the match. Setting people up to fail and have a miserable time with a game they already paid a significant amount of money for is just repugnant, but this and practices like it will become more and more commonplace.
Quote Originally Posted by Sephex View Post
While I agree something should be done about loot boxes in general, I fear government involvement to regulate the industry in any capacity will lead to a possible disaster down the line.
I agree, government intervention will severely damage the industry. But whose fault is that? The consumers who reported the issue or the multi-million dollar companies who exploited them in the pursuit of more and more profit?