i really like this one, lovely colors
A lot of people get joy from gambling. Vegas, gacha, and games like Overwatch are successful because it feels good to beat the odds.
I just did a two pull in Fate/Grand Order and got a character that is limited and only has a 0.6% chance to be pulled. Felt real good.
idk about "joy", you can find gambling entertaining, i've gone to a casino and felt the adrenaline of having all my money be gone in surprisingly short time, but that joy is kind of like the pleasure you get from smoking
smoking is nice, i like the crispy fealing on my throat and lungs, feeling like a badass breathing fire and smoke and being all too casual about it
thing is, smoking is also cancer, so you know, maybe people shouldn't do it :>
I mean, I'm not saying we don't try to encourage you to spend money. Obviously we do, we would like to feed our families. But I don't think giving you lockboxes you can't open without a key is any more unethical than putting a bunch of sweets next to the supermarket checkout so that they can take advantage of your weakened impulse control after making a bunch of shopping decisions. There's a big difference between doing some marketing and actively trying to take advantage of people with addictive disorders.
this is different from that analogy on a few levels, but i'm generally against all kinds of deceiving marketing tactics including the one you listed
what's the same tho, is that i was a normal person until i was injected a need i didn't have or want. i don't like having 12 closed lootboxes, i'm a curious person, i want to know what's inside. after interacting with the system for months (or years? can't remember when they added lootboxes), it's pretty clear that i'll never get the keys i need to open those boxes. in fact, as the years go by and i get the chance to do orianna, syndra, etc. again, i'll end up with even more lootboxes. i've also noticed that i think i've gotten 1 skin for syndra and the rest have been for champions i barely play, so the odds of lootboxes actually containing something that makes me happy are real slim. i got project ashe off a chest and i was like hey that's cool, but i never play ashe, so who gives a fuck. in the past i've considered buying like 10 keys since it's cheap, but then that would exactly mean that the system is working in altering my behaviour, and this is me knowing that the odds are shit and they're double shit because i literally own almost every skin for ori, ahri, lux, syndra, lissandra, etc.
this makes me uncomfortable and it makes the game worse for me, it's something annoying me every time i open the loot menu and it won't go away unless i give riot money like an addict looking for a fix. i wouldn't say i'm the most responsible person (with money or otherwise lol), imagine what these systems do to people with actual problems controlling themselves
and i'm not here to argue against lootboxes in general cos it varies a lot with implementation and whatnot (in fact, league's is one of the most harmless, thanks to that daily limit), but i'll argue specifically about league's, cos league was awesome without them and riot built an insanely big company, with a huge esports scenes, their own literal second internet for america, the best skins out of any game ever, etc. and they did all of that without having gambling in their game.
this was not needed and i really dislike it and all the legendary brand skins in the world won't change that one bit. that skin might be 1820 rp but to me it's worth 0, as are 95% of the skins i've gotten
(Also, this is not personally a big issue for me because I have way more keys than boxes. You might just be too good at the game.)
this can't be it, i'm garbage
I mean, I'll push back a little bit here. Las Vegas is not ethical, because the pitch for Las Vegas, or lottery tickets, or whatever kind of gambling, is that you can spend a certain amount of money to get more money back, covering the money you spent in the first place. The promise is that you might get something for nothing, which is just a lie -- you almost certainly won't. That is pretty dishonest and dangerous.
Lockboxes aren't gambling, because lockboxes don't make that promise -- you might get a skin, or in-game currency, or whatever, but you can't get the money out of the game again. When you buy a lockbox you know 100% that the money spent is permanently sunk. This is actually quite important for legal reasons, but I genuinely think it's an important distinction in terms of the consumer's thought process as well. Nobody's going to put the rent money on lockboxes because they imagine hitting the jackpot and buying a car. You know right up front that all you're going to get, at best, is a mount skin. It's a less exciting promise than becoming a millionaire, but it's a promise that we can at least keep.
there's not one lootbox i didn't open without secretly wishing it was dj sona
these things play with your expectations and is gambling in that you expect to get more in return than what you've invested, it's easy as that
