Loot boxes are not bad game design, say devs

DELETED_195422 · 20 Nov 2017 at 23:51

Link

I don't agree with anything these devs say regarding loot boxes. And "It's just us dinosaurs that remember buying a game once for a fixed price and getting a set experience" is complete and utter BS.

Also, Randy Pitchford should keep his trap shut, permanently. He just digs a hole even deeper.

Steampunk · 20 Nov 2017 at 23:56

Rock_n_Roll said:
Also, Randy Pitchford should keep his trap shut, permanently. He just digs a hole even deeper.

TBF, there's nothing wrong with what Randy is quoted as saying in that article. It makes more sense if you know what a "loot box" is in the Borderlands games, long before it became a gambling/pay to win item bought in a microtransaction.

DELETED_195422 · 20 Nov 2017 at 23:58

Steampunk said:
TBF, there's nothing wrong with what Randy is quoted as saying in that article. It makes more sense if you know what a "loot box" is in the Borderlands games, long before it became a gambling/pay to win item bought in a microtransaction.

I get that, but the guy has zero credibility left due to his previous actions within the games industry. I wouldn't trust him with a bag of rice.

Boycey0211 · 21 Nov 2017 at 00:02

Rock_n_Roll said:
I get that, but the guy has zero credibility left due to his previous actions within the games industry. I wouldn't trust him with a bag of rice.

True, but the way I see it is black and white.

Loot boxes for cosmetic items only, OK. Loot boxes for in game benefits is wrong.

Steampunk · 21 Nov 2017 at 00:03

Rock_n_Roll said:
I get that, but the guy has zero credibility left due to his previous actions within the games industry. I wouldn't trust him with a bag of rice.

Yes, but if another Borderlands game comes out, people will buy it. The screwups with Aliens: CM and Duke Nukem are low points for Gearbox, but Borderlands are the high points. The term "loot box" is what they used there before it's been mis-appropriated for the gambling/pay to win thing we're talking about now.

And I agree with him about the relationship between the customer and the dev/pub. It's far too toxic in many cases because it's adversarial. Devs/pubs have no one to blame but themselves for pulling **** like EA and then getting boycotted by their customers.

oldestgregg · 21 Nov 2017 at 00:16

He is right, they are NOT bad game design...in free to play games as a way for the free games to earn money and NOT as a pay to win option in a £50 game.

Pitchford comes across as a thoroughly dis-likable chap. In a recent interview, he was being super petty by pretending he could not remember Jim Sterling's name because he said some mean things about him ages ago and rightfully called him out on his ****.

Fully star swearing - Armageus

DELETED_195422 · 21 Nov 2017 at 00:37

Steampunk said:
Devs/pubs have no one to blame but themselves for pulling **** like EA and then getting boycotted by their customers.

Definitely. I'm one of these dinosaurs that liked my games whole and not chopped into bits and pieces and sold as DLC, etc. Some days i ask myself WTF has happened to my hobby. It's getting ridiculous.

jasoncb · 21 Nov 2017 at 02:15

They will keep trying until loot boxes are the norm and nobody questions their existence. Such a cheap and nasty way to make money.

Paul_cz · 21 Nov 2017 at 10:11

Lootboxes are basically a way to indoctrinate kids into becoming gamblers. Every company that does them, even for cosmetics, should be boycotted. Unfortunately people like that endorphine drip too much.

Calm · 21 Nov 2017 at 12:00

jasoncb said:
They will keep trying until loot boxes are the norm and nobody questions their existence. Such a cheap and nasty way to make money.

I think they have until the right people start crying about it!

At the moment it's gamer geeks crying on the internet, and lets face it we don't tend to garner a lot of sympathy!

Wait till all the mum's start crying about their kiddys and their loot crate addictions, then those politician types will start asking questions, daft ones, like, what's a loot crate!

~>Dg<~ · 21 Nov 2017 at 12:55

if done right no issue.people cry about anything now days.

ttaskmaster · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:12

I think it's a fantastic business model.
I mean, I am soooooooo busy in my life I don't get time to play. This way, I can just buy the game for £70, buy £400 worth of Loot Crates and win the whole game without even needing to play in the first place, all done within minutes from the comfort of my smartphone app. Gone are the days of having games queued up on Steam, waiting for me to play them. Gone are the days of Devs taking ages to release a game (Star Citizen) and this way it won't matter if the game is bugged to hell.
Yay for progress!!

Glanza · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:17

They are when they turn the game into p2w.

Cosmetic loot boxes I have no problem with.

Armageus · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:19

~>Dg<~ said:
if done right no issue.people cry about anything now days.

In my opinion Overwatch and CS:Go are good examples. Both reward cosmetic items, and both are "capped" to a certain degree (e.g. overwatch 3 "guaranteed" loot boxes in arcade mode per week / cs:go weekly drop/xp bonus) so that you don't feel like having to grind constantly.

Another thought though is that some of the pay-to-unlock (e.g. weapons shortcuts, or vehicle shortcuts) are born by people's sense of entitlement these days - want to see everything, but without working towards it (whereas I get a sense of achievement when I have "unlocked" something through progression)

SPG · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:28

Anything that gives you an advantage by purchasing in-game ad-dons is a sign of a really bad development team, who have zero backbone and a really bad game, same goes for cosmetic items why the hell should I pay extra to a have red space ship, in days gone by there was a RGB colour wheel added to the game.

Alas gaming as some of us remember it is not about the game anymore but greed.

The bushiness models dev teams use is just wrong these-days, how about the lets make a game price it a X.... make an expansion price it at X end of GAME open game up to MOD community...

Stop paying stupid amount of money for pointless hype train licensing agreements, Oh these people are pay the so called "reviewers" to choo choo hype train....

x-st · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:42

oldestgregg said:
Pitchford comes across as a thoroughly dis-likable chap. In a recent interview, he was being super petty by pretending he could not remember Jim Sterling's name because he said some mean things about him ages ago and rightfully called him out on his ****.

I think you're referring to this (skip to 35:37)

oldestgregg · 21 Nov 2017 at 13:47

x-st said:
I think you're referring to this (skip to 35:37)

That's the one. Not doing himself any favours is he!

kristapsl · 21 Nov 2017 at 14:09

Their not bad as long as its customisation only

kristapsl · 21 Nov 2017 at 14:09

Well atleast Ea received major backlash

Steampunk · 21 Nov 2017 at 15:59

x-st said:
I think you're referring to this (skip to 35:37)

oldestgregg said:
That's the one. Not doing himself any favours is he!

It's quite an interesting interview, and it seems unfair to pick him up on not remembering who Jim Starling is. The interviewer doesn't, and neither did I. In fact, earlier in the interview Pitchford also scrabbles around trying (and failing) to remember the name of someone he worked with, so maybe he's just bad at names. There's a lot more to pick him up on than not remembering someone's name in a 90 minute interview.

Ironically, he then goes on to talk about all the conspiracy theories of people making stuff up that just didn't happen. He makes a lot of interesting points, none of them about loot-boxes though.