The difference between rng in the games and rng in lootbox lies in the gambling psychology. Press the button. See colourful lights and exciting sounds. Recieve instant gratification when you get something valuable. Then longing for that instant gratification forces gamblers to press the button countless times to experience that ultimate bliss, while failures make them depressed and they spend more money. Gaming on the other hand is more about the process instead of instant gratification. True if you loot rare good item it feels similar but the difference is in drop rate and time/resources invested. Singleplayer Arpg have tons of loot you are guaranteed to get. Mmorpg games with rng could be as obnoxious as lootboxes to force player to donate for instant results.
Mmo games with lootbox mechanics are worse also because of the bragging factor so people want to feel that they are better than grey mass of other people
Mm... why the equivalent of buying loot boxes is buying the one item they want instead of grinding materials for crafting the item they want?
no especially considering star wars is only fun for about 1000 hrs so do you spend about 5000 hrs not having fun but grinding cuz u wanna play that char or spend 600$ to play that char and still quit the game after a few games of playing that char besides under which circumstance would 10hrs gaming be worth 1$ lootboxes just arent worth it final lootboxes are bad and whoever says otherwise needs to be burned at the stake.
Okay to be serious, I think there is less of s problem of lootboxes than a problem of the mentality of money. The real issue is that the worst offenders of this problem target people who either have no real value of money or grow to have a addictive issue with needing that one fictional intangible object. Its isnt that lootboxes are a problem of themselves its the predatory and should be illegal practices used to make money from lootboxes.
Yep. When they are stripped into number crunching (which I seem to do too much lately). Instead of money, see the time and effort you do as currency. You pay the time to get the random number generator to spawn the right monster. After that, you do the motion to defeat the monster, and then the reward you get is randomized. The difference between the two is that loot box has larger selection of items?
because playing the game, hunting monsters and get rewarded by loots is fun, working in real life to buy loot boxes is not fun.
Well... fuck that. I already feel despair when I have to grind 1% spawn rate in the game, and I have to grind those item with lower probability and it costs money? I'm in the position where I feel that those two option are bad for me. For this whole thread I'm asking, why gamers feel that loot box is worse than those 1% or less drop rate, besides of the monetary reason. also a reply to @MEGA SPARTA CHICKEN
I can partly agree. In a way, drop rates are gambling, exacerbated at low drop rates, but it fundamentally is not the same as what is regarded as real gambling. Tying back to your original question, it is two things that make the difference: the money and the process. Investing your time is less potentially damaging than spending money. It's not an instant process. A gambling addiction will take both your time and your money. Also, lootboxes just like casino gambling really focus on the "pay money to hopefully get good stuff part", while grinding is probably enjoyable for other reasons. If not, grinding takes time which adds an opportunity for the player to consider what he's doing, whether he's actually enjoying it. Lootboxes don't give you any chance; they just suck you in. The answer to your original question is thus: the process.
I'll say this: Uncertainty. Ussually, when you buy something IRL, you ALWAYS get the thing you purcharse. But lootboxes, that certainty factor was nulled & replaced by athorygms of randomness. On most part, this athorygms aim to motivate you spend more money by encouraging with rare drop that you ( with a high chances) of partial-to-little need( but still need them nonetheless). This need will drop as you progress futher from the begineer zone & intermidiate zone. This lootboxes availiable whenever there is a crafting & upgrade system, that hand-in-hand with Inventory of ANY online games you can finds nowadays. If they availiable in F2P games, most of us will ignore it because the devs team need funds to maintain the games, serveices & develop new stuff & payment for those created the content which you willingly to spend your money on. This model is Pay2Progress, or Pay2Accelerate or Pay4Fun, AKA P2A. But to AAA games... this system is unacceptable. No way that you willingly to buy, for example, a frigde that cost 900$ just to found out that the inside of the fridge missing alot of trays, heat regulators, and many more, and eventually, you call for customer serveice & receive an answer that those advance( highlighed) feature need an extra cash for installation those feature. Then, let me ask you: are you gonna piss off about that? If it does to you, then That's what make people frown over loot boxes.
1% drop rate? lol you should try 1% gacha rate. *flash back to me trying to get fate/GO waifu with real money* orz
So in short be cause you don't want to put in any effort you are pro RNG lootbox? you are a really sad bot putting in effort and working with a team to take down a really hard boss whether or not you get that 1%drop is among the most satisfying experiences ever. while just paying real money is dull and empties your bank account that much faster.
2 primary reason. 1. loot boxs are designed to to be addictive while grinding a drop feels more like a chore. 2. Loot boxs tend to impact design to make you play less of the game while paying more. Look at how battlefield 2 had to go back and fix the ex gain after they took out the lootbox stuff to make it reasonable.
the difference is that dropping $100 on the game will usually get you something usable, if not exactly what you were going for, but if you wanted to play your way to unlocking a comparable item, it might take you 2+ months of nonstop playing to save up enough for it. throw on box exclusive items with an abnormal advantage (maybe the most average of loot exclusive weapons could do 3x damage of the greatest end game item you could ever hope to make as f2p, and then different pieces of armor with similar advantages) and you've now created a market where, sure you *can* play free, but there's no realistic way you'll ever be able to compete with the wallet warriors. then you throw on paying for upgrades and even the most unlucky wallet warrior could compete, if not utterly trounce, a f2p. the general idea behind basic p2p is that the wallet warriors are paying to beat the f2p, while the whales are paying to beat the wallet warriors. this is usually where most defenders of the boxes get hung up. they think this is the reason people complain. they don't have money and keep losing, so it's their own fault. if they want to win, then they should just pay more, too. the real problem is the false advertising and misinformation about the odds. they'll say something like the odds are 5% chance of drawing a 6* item, with the occasional "double odds" event. the problem is that the actual odds may be something 0.175% to get a 6*, with a second roll with equal odds to determine which one you get. they figure, since the odds of each 6* is even, they can just add that up to make 5%, while the actual odds of drawing any sort of 6* still relies on hitting that 0.175%. even during a double event, that doesn't come close to breaking 1% chances. from there, you get people with more money than sense, who are desperate to win or get something specific. they're playing under false assumptions, and the amount of money people spend can reach truly insane numbers. i had a guildmate who spent $4k in the span of 2 weeks trying to get something out of a box. the game company actually froze his account until he complained to them, and they put him on a special plan so he could spend even more. this is where the issue of addiction mixes with the other problems to create something truly horrible for some players. however, as far as the governments are concerned, none of that matters. the players can go fuck themselves. their issue comes from the fact that because loot boxes and other similar structures aren't currently considered gambling, the companies aren't required to purchase a gambling license and pay taxes based on gambling. if they were, this would create an age restriction for the game (removing a greater portion of kids from the playerbase), companies would be forced to make their odds publicly available (rather than just giving some bogus number to make things seem more obtainable than they actually were), and they'd take a much larger piece of the pie come tax season. this ultimately wouldn't do shit to stop the pay to win mentality, but it would create a gate large enough to keep a greater number of game companies from using the system, because they simply couldn't afford it. this would push them to selling the actual items for a straight amount, while keeping the loot boxes stictly game currency only. best way around that, would be making them for events that require tons of energy, which people would buy for a specific amount of money. no RNG in the energy purchase at all, and all efforts to get the loot boxes would be done in game, with no way to use real money to directly purchase tokens or whatever to get these boxes. there's also the key system, but frankly that belongs with gambling, as those keys have 0 purpose beyond letting you gamble.
I'm not pro RNG lootbox, but I question why they feel lootbox is bad beside of monetary reason. From my viewpoint as a game addict, those two, time or money is the cost to get the enjoyment from getting rewarded. From what I learned about behavioral addiction, gambling element in the game is the one that makes you addicted. Because of the inherent gambling element in the game (even if the cost to play the game is time instead of money), I'm seeing no difference between the two. So, help me understand something here. I'm not saying that lootbox is good or better than grinding. As you and @WinByDying points out, the opportunity cost between spending time/money to get the reward (experience, either real or just numbers, items, progression) is what makes lootbox frowned by you guys. I myself view the two as the same. Both are the element that makes a game addicting, therefore I am disinclined to play games with lootbox and games that requiring grinding items. those elements will just makes me addicted.