Goodbye Loot Box. Hello Heroes for Hire?

Jrlrma

The real bugaboo about lootboxes is that they are in full-fleged retail releases. Thats where most of the consternation comes from. 

Spiritclaw

Here in Colorado, to be gambling in the illegal sense an activity must meet three criteria.  If you can eliminate one, your legal.  1) risk (money going in) 2) chance (the rng rather than skill determines the outcome and 3) reward (money coming out).

Since we can't sell or trade our random loot, I'm pretty sure MPQ is perfectly legal where I'm standing.

Moon Roach

There's a comment on a thread in Slashdot to do with EA's continued use of loot boxes (https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12086938&cid=56582064) that I find compelling.  To quote:

"I find the argument that loot boxes are implemented in a way that is 'not gambling' if you can't sell the results for real world money, specious.

Time is money.

If a loot box will potentially save players hours of time getting to some goal, then the value of the loot box is the time it will save. The fact a player can't sell it to someone else is irrelevant.

Any non-cosmetic lootbox mechanic is gambling and should be regulated entirely as such."

jamesh

Jrlrma said:

The real bugaboo about lootboxes is that they are in full-fleged retail releases. Thats where most of the consternation comes from. 

I don't think that's it.  Full priced retail games have been selling in-game items and currency for years before, and governments never got involved.

And when the question is whether loot boxes are gambling, it is hardly going to matter whether you need to buy the game before spending money on the gambling.

Jrlrma

I wasnt speaking specifically on the gambling aspect as much the why everyone hates them aspect. Items that used to be unlockable in-game are now behind an rng paywall in a full $60 retail release. 

PenniesForEveryone

Moon Roach said:

There's a comment on a thread in Slashdot to do with EA's continued use of loot boxes (https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12086938&cid=56582064) that I find compelling.  To quote:

"I find the argument that loot boxes are implemented in a way that is 'not gambling' if you can't sell the results for real world money, specious.

Time is money.

If a loot box will potentially save players hours of time getting to some goal, then the value of the loot box is the time it will save. The fact a player can't sell it to someone else is irrelevant.

Any non-cosmetic lootbox mechanic is gambling and should be regulated entirely as such."

This last sentence is ridiculous.  What does being cosmetic have to do with anything?  If that cosmetic thing would otherwise take time to get it has just as much value as some non-cosmetic thing.  If people want it and are willing to spend to get it, then it has value.  If loot boxes are gambling, so are non-cosmetic loot boxes.  To suggest otherwise only demonstrates a gaming-centric bias in the argument which loses credibility.

Or to put it another way, if you say "it's OK for you to get that item from a loot box because it's cosmetic only, but it's not OK for you to get that other OP item from a loot box because it's gambling," you are showing that you don't really care about the gambling aspect of it.  It's not the gambling that you have a problem with, it's the fact that others are able to spend more than you to obtain a powerful item that you aren't willing to spend to obtain.

Pr0spect0r

PenniesForEveryone said:

Moon Roach said:

There's a comment on a thread in Slashdot to do with EA's continued use of loot boxes (https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12086938&cid=56582064) that I find compelling.  To quote:

"I find the argument that loot boxes are implemented in a way that is 'not gambling' if you can't sell the results for real world money, specious.

Time is money.

If a loot box will potentially save players hours of time getting to some goal, then the value of the loot box is the time it will save. The fact a player can't sell it to someone else is irrelevant.

Any non-cosmetic lootbox mechanic is gambling and should be regulated entirely as such."

This last sentence is ridiculous.  What does being cosmetic have to do with anything?  If that cosmetic thing would otherwise take time to get it has just as much value as some non-cosmetic thing.  If people want it and are willing to spend to get it, then it has value.  If loot boxes are gambling, so are non-cosmetic loot boxes.  To suggest otherwise only demonstrates a gaming-centric bias in the argument which loses credibility.

Or to put it another way, if you say "it's OK for you to get that item from a loot box because it's cosmetic only, but it's not OK for you to get that other OP item from a loot box because it's gambling," you are showing that you don't really care about the gambling aspect of it.  It's not the gambling that you have a problem with, it's the fact that others are able to spend more than you to obtain a powerful item that you aren't willing to spend to obtain.

The difference between the two boxes is that one is buying clothes and the other is buying into the chance of getting a raise at your job.

Buying clothes vs buying a chance to get something that will jumpstart your character is the issue. People will spend to buy cosmetic items because it's their vanity but doesn't affect how they do in the game but make them happier.

PenniesForEveryone

Pr0spect0r said:

PenniesForEveryone said:

Moon Roach said:

There's a comment on a thread in Slashdot to do with EA's continued use of loot boxes (https://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12086938&cid=56582064) that I find compelling.  To quote:

"I find the argument that loot boxes are implemented in a way that is 'not gambling' if you can't sell the results for real world money, specious.

Time is money.

If a loot box will potentially save players hours of time getting to some goal, then the value of the loot box is the time it will save. The fact a player can't sell it to someone else is irrelevant.

Any non-cosmetic lootbox mechanic is gambling and should be regulated entirely as such."

This last sentence is ridiculous.  What does being cosmetic have to do with anything?  If that cosmetic thing would otherwise take time to get it has just as much value as some non-cosmetic thing.  If people want it and are willing to spend to get it, then it has value.  If loot boxes are gambling, so are non-cosmetic loot boxes.  To suggest otherwise only demonstrates a gaming-centric bias in the argument which loses credibility.

Or to put it another way, if you say "it's OK for you to get that item from a loot box because it's cosmetic only, but it's not OK for you to get that other OP item from a loot box because it's gambling," you are showing that you don't really care about the gambling aspect of it.  It's not the gambling that you have a problem with, it's the fact that others are able to spend more than you to obtain a powerful item that you aren't willing to spend to obtain.

The difference between the two boxes is that one is buying clothes and the other is buying into the chance of getting a raise at your job.

Buying clothes vs buying a chance to get something that will jumpstart your character is the issue. People will spend to buy cosmetic items because it's their vanity but doesn't affect how they do in the game but make them happier.

I understand the difference between cosmetic and non-cosmetic loot boxes.  If one is gambling then they both are.

Merrick

By that definition, grab bags, baseball cards, trading cards, and any number of amusement park games are gambling. 

And I for one would hate to live in a world where I have to go to Las Vegas to play skee-ball. 

abmoraz

Bowgentle said:

BoyWonder1914 said:

PenniesForEveryone said:

Draws now aren't truly random - there is a reward table that seems to be unique to each player, but fixed and hidden to that player.  It's a technicality, but potentially an out - maybe just make that table visible to the player?

Say what? You're saying the game already knows what my next 5 pulls from the standard, elite, heroic, and legendary token stores are going to be? How do we truly know this? 

Because you can draw on various devices and will get the same results every time.

I've posted on this before.  "Random" does not mean "unrepeatable".  There are huge mathmatic and compSci papers I can point you towards about "repeatable psuedo-random number generators", but let's be honest, no one in an MPQ forum is going to read 100+ page PhD papers on higher mathematics principles.

The summary is: The tokes you get ARE random in the same way that a pack of Baseball or Pokemon cards are.  When you open them has no bearing on what they contain, nor does the order you open them.

Hadronic

abmoraz said:

The summary is: The tokes you get ARE random in the same way that a pack of Baseball or Pokemon cards are.  When you open them has no bearing on what they contain, nor does the order you open them.

Then how come I can open a hoard after the loot table updates and pull beard cap out of old tokens?
My sealed pack of 4th edition Magic cards doesn't suddenly start dropping 12th edition when its released.

The seed value on the token doesn't change, but the loot table certainly can.

Bowgentle

abmoraz said:

Bowgentle said:

BoyWonder1914 said:

PenniesForEveryone said:

Draws now aren't truly random - there is a reward table that seems to be unique to each player, but fixed and hidden to that player.  It's a technicality, but potentially an out - maybe just make that table visible to the player?

Say what? You're saying the game already knows what my next 5 pulls from the standard, elite, heroic, and legendary token stores are going to be? How do we truly know this? 

Because you can draw on various devices and will get the same results every time.

I've posted on this before.  "Random" does not mean "unrepeatable".  There are huge mathmatic and compSci papers I can point you towards about "repeatable psuedo-random number generators", but let's be honest, no one in an MPQ forum is going to read 100+ page PhD papers on higher mathematics principles.

The summary is: The tokes you get ARE random in the same way that a pack of Baseball or Pokemon cards are.  When you open them has no bearing on what they contain, nor does the order you open them.

I'm sure the initial sequence is randomly generated, yes.
But once generated, it's fixed.

abmoraz

Bowgentle said:

abmoraz said:

Bowgentle said:

BoyWonder1914 said:

PenniesForEveryone said:

Draws now aren't truly random - there is a reward table that seems to be unique to each player, but fixed and hidden to that player.  It's a technicality, but potentially an out - maybe just make that table visible to the player?

Say what? You're saying the game already knows what my next 5 pulls from the standard, elite, heroic, and legendary token stores are going to be? How do we truly know this? 

Because you can draw on various devices and will get the same results every time.

I've posted on this before.  "Random" does not mean "unrepeatable".  There are huge mathmatic and compSci papers I can point you towards about "repeatable psuedo-random number generators", but let's be honest, no one in an MPQ forum is going to read 100+ page PhD papers on higher mathematics principles.

The summary is: The tokes you get ARE random in the same way that a pack of Baseball or Pokemon cards are.  When you open them has no bearing on what they contain, nor does the order you open them.

I'm sure the initial sequence is randomly generated, yes.
But once generated, it's fixed.

This is correct.  I had more to my comment addressing that (loot tables and such), but when I re-read it before posting, it seemed a bit rambling, so I deleted it.

The tokens are generated with a "seed".  This seed never changes.  That seed is run through a pseudo-random number generator which picks a prize based on the loot table.  Vaults are the easiest to explain, so we'll use that:

Let's say our example vault has 40 prizes.  Our tokens will then randomly generate with a number between 1 and 2.14 billion (2 to the 31st power, or in compSci terms: an integer).  The number assigned to that token is always there.  It cannot be changed.  let's say that our token generates the number 956736.  Now, how do we determine which prize number 956736 gets?  Well, we start at the first item in the vault and start counting, wrapping around when we reach the end of the vault, until we hit our number.  That seems tedious, but for computers, that's a very quick calculation called "modulus".  If the vault is full, we would get the 16th prize in the vault (956736 MOD 40 = 16).  If we already did a pull and there were 39 left, we would get the 27th (956736 MOD 39 = 27) and so on.

That's why, if through some freak network or save file corruption, you get to re-pull, you get the same prizes.  The vault's state and the tokens seed haven't changed, so you will get the same prize.  The only way to change your prizes would be to pull from a different token (such as a 10pack or a 40pack) then pull your token with seed=9556736.  That will change the modulus number and get you a different pull.  That or pay to reset the vault.  Resetting the vault will still get you prize #16, however that prize may be different for the new vault.

This is also holds true for packs.  The loot table (the "info" question mark) only tells you the rough odds and not the exact locations of each prize, but it has a much larger table behind it, just like a vault... only this time, there's no removal.  If you get prize #16 from a pack, you can get prize #16 again.  it's not removed as in a vault.  In this case, to change your draw, you have to wait until the pack's table changes (i.e.: wait until something is moved from the Latest to the Classics or a new character is released into the Heroic packs, etc...).

purplemur

I want "cosmetic" loot boxes in mpq! (alt-art covers, loading art, skins)
I would pay directly for and I would pay for the chance at winning different colors!! 
so i guess, i'm ok with gambling. 
Doesn't that just mean there is an extra loading screen that warns me that playing is known to the state of California to be a cause of cancer type warning? 

but seriously i want gwenpool costumes

NeonBlue

The whole cosmetic argument is predicated on the idea that if it does not influence in-game mechanics, then it is fair. It becomes about drawing the line between what is deemed necessary and unnecessary, and if gambling only affects the unnecessary, then it is acceptable because it has no effect on other players. This addresses the notion of fair play vs. unfair advantages, which ties back to game integrity, player perception, and player experience (ie. "pay-to-win").

This however does not address the problem of gambling, since both forms of items, when placed in lootboxes fit the exact same standard. To some, cosmetics have a greater impact than items which influence in-game mechanics, and they would buy or wear an item that looked better even if it sacrificed stats. It is a very real part of their game experience, and gambling mechanics which exploit these individuals into spending loads of money are just as predatory as those which provide stat boosts. Just because it's "someone else's problem" doesn't mean it's not a problem.

Daiches

Hadronic said:

abmoraz said:

The summary is: The tokes you get ARE random in the same way that a pack of Baseball or Pokemon cards are.  When you open them has no bearing on what they contain, nor does the order you open them.

Then how come I can open a hoard after the loot table updates and pull beard cap out of old tokens?
My sealed pack of 4th edition Magic cards doesn't suddenly start dropping 12th edition when its released.

The seed value on the token doesn't change, but the loot table certainly can.

Because your predetermined pack doesn't say Cap, it say 4star (n-x), 5star (m-y), etc.. where n is the number of 4stars, m is the number of 5stars and x and y are you predetermined order. That references the loot table that changes whenever something gets added to the game (new season for 4s and lower, And 2 weeks after release for 5stars).
This is a digital product. You can't compare it to printed fixed products, or even products that divide into sets.