Skyflowers.co [0048] - Battlefront 2 'Loot Box Fiasco' Attracts Government Attention

Well done complainers, you've just gone and attracted a government crack down on gaming. Congratulations, you can expect new laws to be passed that affect game design for now and ever more.

What started out as griping in the privacy online forums has now spread into a debate in the halls of Congress. The last place you want decisions over gaming to be made. Loot boxes will soon be debated over as to whether they are a form of 'online gambling' and so, will be subject to the same laws that casinos and lottery tickets are held.

Personally, I like loot boxes and randomized drops in games. Some hate them but quite frankly, I think the issue is one of coming up with a better design for how they work than anything. Despite it being a work in progress, the haters have picked up their "I hate EA" placcards and ranted about "Pay 2 Win" so much that they have now caught the attention of "Big Daddy", the government of the USA and the EU ruling bodies. Some senator is going to use the hype of the situation to advance their political career, you can bet on it.

Well done complainers, you have got detention for the whole class.

The concept that Loot Crates are a form of gambling is a strange one. Especially when other issues go ignored. Loot boxes are under the microscope but "guns in gaming" and mass violence as depicted in games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc are allowed to be pedalled with a simple warning sticker.

Gambling is out. But guns are okay in this crazy world we live in.

In regards to Battlefront 2, the hype of the loot crates is way, way overblown. And often misses the mark in terms of the actual argument. Rather than looking at the design aspects of how to deliver fun and engaging content while maintaining a balanced game, the community has tossed out that argument and now seems to be arguing for the sake of arguing. It's really about striking a balance between design vs profits.

Big name news channels on YouTube and the internet have only fanned the flames in their bandwagon and clickbait reporting. It's not even reporting. Not one channel I have come across has done any investigative reporting on the subject. They haven't produced a cost / accounting of game design ( including Disneys royalty ) so that a clear debate can be had over profit vs greed relating to game pricing and micro transactions.

If Snowden can leak secret documents, surely we can get our hands on the actual cost of the game and gripe about real statistics. Personally, I wish all this rage was funnelled towards getting game developers a wage increase. The dudes and dudettes who sit their designing games and fend off trolls in the forums would be getting paid buttons. But no, this who EA hate thing is about gamers paying less and not about rewarding the people who made the game rather than shareholders.

Without the basic math, speculation and teenage hormones have ballooned the issue to a point beyond it's actual boundaries. Hysteria and the trend to "downvote anything that moves", has gained traction and has become a trend. Regardless of merit of the actual argument. Suffice to say there will be a crack down by world governments. I hope y'all like what they come up with because games will be designed according to those rulings.

Say what you will about companies like EA, the gaming community has a lot to answer for in this and how games will be designed in future. The idea to blame EA for making huge profits is a little ludicrous. The fact that they have figured out a way to make money is no more a source of anger than if you or I figured out how to get paid big bucks. Being profitable is not a sin and let's face it, no one designs a game ( or does anything for that matter ) for no return on investment.

As far as EA and other gaming corps are concerned, the loot box hysteria won't affect their bottom line. Not one bit. They will simply "listen to what gamers want", respond to market sentiment and then shift their profit model to a new way of earning money.

I expect game prices will go up to accomodate the loss of revenue from micro-transactions. The profit lost on those will probably be spread across the price tag everyone pays for games. The current culture of 'we want free stuff" will be met with higher initial prices for games and lots of free DLC from then on.

I find all of this "strange and hilarious".

When games like Donkey Kong first came out, I wonder if it attracted as much hysteria and down voting. It had no campaign. It wasn't photo-realistic. It was monotonous. But as game development advances, it seems that gamers want more and more and more out of them. And this leaves room to gripe over details, that don't actually matter compared to real world issues that could do with the focus and brain power.

Imagine if the issue of homelessness gained this much attention? Wow. Would things in the world outside our ego-bubbles be different.