U.S introduces bill to ban loot boxes and P2W mechanics.

[Psycho Sonny]

Ahh don’t get me wrong I completely agree with you there I don’t think micro transactions should be allowed at all either. I stopped playing games like cod just because of that reason, it’s got to the point where your not actually paying for more content your actually paying for the content they deliberately left out of the game just to charge you more money for it a few months down the line.
I think most games take advantage of the market now so to be honest it’s hard to buy a title that hasn’t got this included in it one way or another.
A content rich game that gives real value for money that decides to extend a title further by adding additional content further down the line for a small fee is one thing but to churn out the half arse releases like some company’s do then to ask for more money is ridiculous

I have no issue with dlc or season passes.

But being forced to buy in order to compete is completely unfair.

Especially given the target market will be majority kids.

Imagine in cod you pay £40 for the game then £40 for the season pass.

They then introduce paid for loot boxes where you have a chance of say 1 in 1000 of getting the best gun in the game which is so OP it makes rubbish players better at the game.

They then introduce a more powerful version of that gun every week.

So in order to compete you need to buy loot boxes every week until the game is done.

They give you a handful of free boxes a week but when the chances are so low like 1000-1 you may never pull it.

So now you are playing online against people who have that gun but you don't.

It's a completely unfair system that whoever has the most money to spend on packs wins.

 

[GGizmo]

I think its a good thing to ban these loot boxes and p2w elements because they are ruining games.

Perfectly good games are ruined because p2w/loot boxes arent just an optional extra, they are essential to completing some games. For example some games with those in have so much grind to them that if you didnt pay something you'd be grinding the same area for days, weeks. Some games are actually designed purposefully bad and then they throw in the p2w/loot box option to skip all the badness. Thats NOT how games should be made.

I've purposely on principle not bought some games because of p2w/loot box elements in them. I've no intention of paying anything other than the price (and some games are way overpriced to begin with).

 

[davida76]

I'm firmly in the camp of I've bought the game, that's where the spending on said game stops. Unfortunately the gaming industry is on a downward spiral with this crap as far as the consumer is concerned and I don't see it getting any better soon, whilst there's cash to be had you can guarantee the powers behind it will pursue to the bitter end regardless of the damage it does. I think the real reason we see this now stems from the mobile market where all free games are in reality monetised by said purchases to win, the developers saw this trend and adopted it on all platforms. I would love to see a return to the days when a game is made, you own it and it bloody well works straight away withought downloading a day one patch of a bazillion gigabytes....but I digress.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I overheard a conversation at work where a guy said he had spent £300 on apex legends. So started talking to him and I find out he did it on console too.

The game has only been out a few months. Can you imagine that if he keeps this up in a couple of years he will have spent thousands on it. He is young and will likely regret it in future but he is over 18 but I still feel like he has been taken for a ride. It's a horrible system. Yes nobody is forcing him but I've heard much worse stories involving kids begging their parents, uncles and aunts for fortnite skins, etc. The ones they want are like £50 too and its primary aged children who have no clue what money is.

All loot boxes should be free. If developers want to make money charge for the game or charge for an annual pass which is maximum £40 a year. Also the trading market of buying and selling skins should be regulated or banned. It just encourages some to spend stupid amounts.