In the ever-growing PC gaming market, the trend of in-game loot boxes for sale is highly controversial in politics and the gaming community.
For some, loot boxes represent the future of the gaming industry, as it increases the range of free-to-play games, for others, loot boxes represent a danger, especially for younger players, due to gambling addiction. But to what extent is this topic relevant for PC games?
The first official Fortnite World Championship took place in New York in July. The 16-year-old American Kyle Giersdorf “Bugha” won the individual competition worth 3 million and became the first world champion of the young first-person shooter Fortnite.
The fact that e-sports has long since risen from an underground phenomenon to a global sensation is demonstrated by the enormous viewership of the event. Almost 19,000 fans made a pilgrimage to the arena where the final took place, and almost 2.3 million watched the event live on YouTube and the gaming platform Twitch As of today, the final game of matchday 3 has been viewed 13 million times.
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If you compare this with the sheer number of participants of 40 million players from 200 countries, there is room for improvement, but the trend of the last few years is confirmed: E-sports is gradually becoming one of the most popular sports in the world.
Economically lucrative
If you look at the individual competition titles and the companies behind them, the hype is, above all, economically lucrative.
Sponsors are literally scrambling for places in the coveted live broadcasts and the player scene for the biggest titles is also becoming increasingly professional. If you take a look at another popular first-person shooter game, Overwatch from Blizzard/Activision, you can see a clear path towards mass sport.
Founded in 2017 with initially 12 teams, this has been increased to 20 teams over the last two years. Each player receives an official salary and is provided with a professional athlete contract.
After the end of the last Overwatch season, a massive transfer carousel began, which is actually only known from professional football, in which entire teams were bought up by competitors.
If you follow the publishing and financial concepts of the major game companies, two trends can inevitably be identified.
Games are increasingly being offered free-to-play and offer internal microtransactions in order to continue to work lucratively. These internal microtransactions range from cosmetic items, level boosters to entire game expansions with quests and other tasks.
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Lootbox as the most popular method of this internal sales opportunity
Loot boxes usually contain one or more in-game items, which are included at random.
If you open enough loot boxes, the probability of getting the desired item increases.
The types of loot boxes vary significantly from game to game. Some differences are listed below.
Overwatch only offers cosmetic items in its loot boxes, skins, sayings, emotes or highlight intros.
None of these items provide an in-game advantage, i.e. they do not artificially improve the player's performance in any way, the improvement remains on a purely cosmetic level. Fortnite works in the same way, but with the difference that the items in Fortnite can also be purchased individually. Here, too, no playful advantage is acquired, but only an opportunity to individualize one's own character.
Various online card games take a different approach, think of Hearthstone, Magic-The Gathering Arena or Yugi-Oh Duel Links. Here the term loot box is replaced by card packs.
The game materials, i.e. the individual playing cards, are randomly sold in card packs.
The game companies release a new expansion with hundreds more cards every 2-4 months, making it almost impossible to collect the cards naturally, i.e. by playing regularly and purchasing them using pure in-game currency.
However, the new expansion usually brings with it a so-called “power creep”, i.e. the new cards are so strengthened that without these new cards, decks from the old card packs cannot keep up.
With Hearthstone, Blizzard also came up with the clever trick of removing an old expansion from the game with each new expansion, essentially forcing players to buy the new expansions over time.
The online football game Fifa from EA also offers card packs for sale in its ultimate mode, which contain players who can be used in games against other players.
But the loot box trend doesn't stop at shooters and role-playing games either.
The first-person shooter Star Wars Battlefront 2 from EA (version from 2017) offered real gaming advantages for real money; unlocking a new character required up to 40 hours of play or a purchase via the in-game store. A huge shitstorm poured over the American company, which then took loot boxes out of the game for a short time.
Even the role-playing game market leader World of Warcraft offers level boosters for money in order to avoid annoying initial areas and be able to start straight into the end-game content.
The loot box phenomenon has now also reached politicians and activists, who see the loot box system as a way around gambling.
The advantages of loot boxes are clear for both sides.
On the one hand, games are increasingly being offered for free, which creates a larger player base. A good example is Apex Legends from Respawn Entertainment, which was able to attract 10 million players within three days; the number of registered players is currently 70 million (however, it should be noted here that these are registered and not active players ).
The game hit the nerve of the times and served as Fortnite for adults.
The game was free to play and was financed through the internal loot boxes, which until now had been limited to a purely cosmetic nature.
With this system, players have the opportunity to purchase loot boxes using their own internal player performance; the better the individual's performance, the more loot boxes can be purchased.
At this point, however, the enormous risk and danger of this system becomes obvious.
If a player's performance remains below his expectations or if it is not possible to complete an item collection within the game, you will need to reach into your wallet to speed up completion. The addictive potential is boosted here.
Younger players in particular see prestige and bragging rights in the items that can be purchased; anyone who can't show off the newest or rarest skin will quickly find themselves at the bottom of other players.
Even if this explanation seems clumsy, the microtransaction numbers show that the principle works for game developers.
Although Blizzard/Activision does not release official figures, it is assumed that the group's main source of income no longer comes from the sale of games or subscriptions, but rather from in-game transactions in World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone.
Some countries, including Belgium and the Netherlands, have already classified loot boxes as gambling and called for the corresponding mechanisms to be removed.
While most large game companies ignore this legal situation or want to fight it in court, some game developers, such as Valve, have already reacted and changed their system. Players can now see in advance the percentage chances of receiving the individual items in the loot boxes.
The discussion about loot boxes is complex because every game developer handles the internal system differently.
A few partially creative options are also listed here.
Typically, internal items are divided into rarity categories, e.g. common, rare, epic, legendary.
For example, Overwatch does not guarantee receipt of any of the above items in its loot boxes. The loot box can therefore only contain ordinary items, but in extreme cases only legendary items, although this possibility is in the low per mille range.
Hearthstone guarantees that you will receive at least one rare card in its packs and also offers large card packs that are guaranteed to contain a legendary card.
Valve's first-person shooter Counter Strike takes a completely different approach.
The boxes appear here during the game, but they can only be opened with special keys.
Depending on the quality of the key, the contents of the box are more valuable. In contrast to most other games, the purchased in-game items can be traded on a market, sometimes for thousands of dollars.
These items also do not provide any game advantage.
Although World of Warcraft does not offer loot boxes per se, playing time can be purchased here for real money and sold in the game for in-game currency.
As mentioned above, Fortnite offers individual items in its internal shop for individual purchase for money.
The problem with banning loot boxes is the existence of such games themselves.
It is difficult to imagine that the major e-sports titles will be permanently made available and maintained by gaming companies on a free basis if internal purchasing options are banned, as there is simply no profit.
Since advertisements for real products within games are currently only displayed on mobile games (games on mobile phones), a ban would result in the death of many popular titles and would also massively damage the e-sports scene, as the biggest titles are currently on one Free-to-play basis with internal loot box mechanics. (Overwatch still costs 20 euros in its basic version, but the game will also be switched to Free To Play over the next year)
In summary, it can be seen that the computer gaming sector in particular is undergoing an exciting development, as various business models are being tested, successfully continued or scrapped again.
In addition to the major criticism that loot boxes are pure gambling, it should be added that the currently biggest titles in e-sports do not have loot boxes that bring actual game progress, but only purely cosmetic advantages, while titles that try to make too much money out of players to be squeezed out mercilessly or relegated to niche products.
It is questionable whether a ban on loot boxes will actually bring about an improvement, as this massively threatens the development of new titles and the existence of existing titles.
It is difficult to give a final outlook, as the discussion is still ongoing within the player community and the individual countries do not coordinate their handling of loot boxes, but rather regulate them for their own region.
In any case, the topic remains exciting!
References:
- gaming-grounds.de
- futurezone.at
- pcgames.de
- fortnitetracker.com
- zeit.de
- spieleratgeber-nrw.de
- gamestar.de
Author: Alexander Herberstein / Article image: Shutterstock / By Casimiro PT
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