With stricter rating requirements comes minimizing immersion and strictly focussing the most vulnerable of the market. Microtransactions are naturally linked to gambling mechanics with loot boxes. The writing is on the wall.
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I don’t agree with how lootbox-gambling is handled either.
I don’t think it’s as vicious as the “founding father” as in you actually stand to gain more cash than with what you enter, but it’s still affecting potential addicts out there and pulling them into gambling-schemes.
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Kids aren’t exactly prepared for the aggressive gaming tactics a business can bring, that’s why they’re not allowed to gamble in casinos or participate in any gambling.
Aside from that it naturally becomes the market to exploit because when people grow up they get more sophisticated. Impressing an ever aging demographic means putting more time and money into development from writing to art to complexity to price scheme. It’s just going to be more difficult to sell a product to older folks.
The problem is Blizzard isn’t even trying to market to their oldest or even middle tier aged fans. They’re trying to get NEW people which means the YOUNGEST group. You can see the heroes released from Blizzcon to see how they’ve progressed.
Cho’gall, Lunara, and Graymane were all obscure to some degree and enabled friends to have fun.
Then there was more direct veteran pandering with Varian and Ragnaros.
Then it jumped straight to Teens when they realized people were abandoning ship and losing hope in HotS with D.va and Genji. Even going so far as to bait fans to Blizzcon with Deathwing tease. Which they trolled us with a D.va skin.
Then it was another teen grab and loyal grab, again denying fans of Deathwing but adding another dragon which also targets teens because of thicc.
Now it’s full on teen or youngerville with a literal high school or middle school kid hero. Between that and mobile gaming, one has to wonder what exactly one gains by remaining loyal to blizzard. A remaster of an old game which will be expensive and baited with tangent goodies just seems like further abuse.
Blizzard has been including the younger demographic as a target group ever since they didnt get the Warhammer-license; as in since forever.
That’s nothing new, so I disagree there.
Mobile gaming was just a bad time to announce it.
Should have annouced it along something else like Bethesda does - and it should have arrived on PC, if youre already going to make it appear on Switch.
Edit: NVM, they shifted their entire studio over to mobile gaming now.
Screw that.
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Nah, Blizzard has been behaving in a way for a very long time where they convey our voice doesn’t matter. It’s been happening in wow for ages, hots since alpha, HS, SC2, and now with mobile.
They’re shoving things down our throats because they’re trying to normalize certain things in the gaming market. The collective dev community of companies are all pushing micro transactions not because of anything lucrative that they’re “all getting in on,” but are working together to ensure that there’s nothing but micro transaction games on the market because it is lucrative.
The same goes for strangling their base. They started with Digg and Reddit by taking over the community moderation controls to silence opposition and boost positive press.
The entertainment does this consistently with botched movies getting raving reviews. And when that fails, when the fandom backlash is louder, the same network of paid people like bloggers and article writers, all attack the fandom.
There’s some contingency that’s here that’s actively enjoying it because they’re too dumb to know better. They’re queuing up and are surprised when the enemy team attacks them when they’re stealing a camp from them. People literally GG at loading screen because of comps.
We need to take a good look at Belgium and promote international laws against microtransaction and lootbox systems. It is ethically wrong, immoral and dangerous for those who cannot control it’s influence.
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I must say I am really disappointed by how they handled Belgian ban on lootoxes. I really hoped it will make them rethink their policies, but instead they removed ability to purchase lootboxes from anyone accessing the game from Belgium. It seems like some bigger country will have to ban those practices in order to push Blizzard to change it. Belgium will hopefully try to push it as EU-wide law.
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Loot-boxes in HotS is fine… The good thing about the system in HotS is that it isn’t as much of a “gamble” to the definition as the Overwatch loot-box system.
In HotS you can earn gems. You can earn shards/gold too… very rapidly i should add, fast enough to buy-out any new hero and any new skin. The loot-boxes in hotS are VERY generous too compared to Overwatch.
However you look at it HotS micro transactions are perfectly fine… Imo it’s even wrong to call HotS loot-box system “gambling”.
Worst part of HotS shop system is that some skins are exclusive with gem purchases and cannot be earned.
As long as you can earn it, it’s fine. And as i said, compared to soooooooooo many other games, hots has the most generous shop/loot-box system.
The OW lootboxes are among the least gameplay impacting lootboxes available in the game industry as they don’t have anything but cosmetics in them. On the other hand, HotS lootboxes can contain Stimpacks and Heroes, both of which have some non-cosmetic impact on the game.
That doesn’t change the fact that lootboxes are essentially gambling, regardless of what they contain, and allowing them to be purchased for money is essentially trying to skirt around gambling laws everywhere.
Your argument is bullsh!t and devoid of any decency. IF all the game companies are including lootboxes, doesn’t that seem like collusion for the sake of profit? How is it a gameplay element that’s fun? Those are the things that used to be copied. Nobody asked for lootboxes. The game companies found a way to bait out some extra sales and it’s become normalized because if one company did it, it would appear greedy. If they all do it, fanbois defend the practice by comparing the level of greed. It’s completely ridiculous!
How can it be “devoid of any decency”?
You’re playing a game that is Free to Play. The developers work hard and passionately to add heroes, maps, skins etc all the time.
Is it REALLY inhumanely alot to ask for a 5 euro a Stimpack? Stop being so ungrateful an ask for something that wont harm the developers economy. YOU have the option to pay or not. I bought the heroes i wanted WAAAAAY back in the day before 2.0. I havent bought a single hero since… because now you earn them all fairly easy. Play, earn gold and don’t Re-Roll the chests… you will save up to ANY amount you struggle for fast. That way you can buy any hero anytime it releases. I can buy 2 of the newly released heroes with gold if i want, but i don’t really like the last 2 so im keepin the gold. What’s the deal?
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I will try to explain shortly, but it is quite broad topic so it might be still a bit long.
It exploits basic human psychology. Even if it has just cosmetic items, it still exploits lust people got for them. You can get them for free? Great, you open something good and you’re thrilled to get another good item so you might purchase few lootboxes for real money. But most likely you got just thrash. And you really want that shiny skin which was just released. So you purchase few more lootboxes with real money and try your luck or at least get the dust to buy it in a store. Did you ever wonder why drug dealers often offer young teens free samples at parties? It’s to hook them for more.
You might think those are easily controllable feelings which only affects people who got problems with gambling or who easily built up an addiction, but the truth is it affects a LOT of people. This cheap thrill exploit is the most profitable marketing strategy used in gambling up to date. And it’s so profitable because it works on so many people. And what’s the saddest thing of it all? It works especially on the most vulnerable groups of gamers - those who already got problems with gambling and, what’s the worst about it, THE KIDS.
I agree with you that lootbox system Blizzard uses isn’t the worst there is, but gaming companies should have some responsibility towards their player base. Especially when kids are involved. They should not aim for “lesser evil” by being “not that bad”. They should aim to set an example and release games which doesn’t exploit weaknesses of the most vulnerable groups amongst players just to bring some extra income in.
Yes gambling is bad, especially for kids. But HotS loot-box system or shop system doesn’t really have that much of a “gamble” tagged onto it…
A new legendary skin costs 1600 shards, which you can earn pretty fast.
A non legendary skin costs from 100-400 shards.
I agree however that from a new comers perspective it could be abit “gambling ish” because they have nothing. But it’s a f2p game… how else are they supposed to profit and give the workers their due?
The entire western world revolves around lust, TV shows half naked chicks lickin on a ice-cream, Media sites headlines best ways to do BJ’s. Or Youtube creators using half naked chicks on thumbnails…
HotS which no “kid” likes wont get to become a bad influence for kids… I would agree 100% if this existed within Fortnite. I would say the player base of this game are people above 16-18+ y/o
this is greed, not paying salaries. i rather pay for a game either in one go or a monthly subscription for a fair game.
2 bads make a good?
you dont understand this topic. yes, the majority of playerbase is older, maybe 18+, but blizzard is protecting snowflakes and the 1% of 10 year old frustrated little kids who pretend to be offended by anything.
Kid’s don’t play this game, even if they do they wont be able to experience the “gamble”.
The current system is fine… My point with the other “bad” was Youtube and TV…
Kids see Youtube more than HotS, Kids see TV more than HotS. Don’t try to rant about the loot-box system being gamble. It’s not.
You play, you earn, you unlock whatever it is you want.
This thread would be more appropriate if the loot-boxes were gamble and existed in Fortnite forums… THAT’S a kids game… That’s where it’d be a bad influence… Not here. It’s not even gamble here in HotS… If your own skin is itching to play a specific pixel made hero, then pay… buy it with real money… if you don’t care if it’s new or not then you can play and earn it instead…
Don’t encourage something that would harm the game economy. In theory it’s bad sure, but not in current reality since kids doesn’t play this game. It’s a “grown ups” game.
Oh, COME ON!
They do.
You are betting your money in order to get something valuable for you. You are not guaranteed to get it. That’s exactly what gambling is.
No. In case of lootboxes you don’t unlock whatever you want, you unlock whatever random generator lets you to unlock.
It is gamble. Even in HotS. As I said before, company should not aim for being “less evil than competitors”, it should aim to set an example. There is a lot of hit games which survived and in fact earned a lot of money even without lootboxes. All you have to do is to offer quality. Lootboxes are cheap cash cow. Very shady cheap cash cow.
Lootboxes ARE harming the game economy. Yes they earn a lot of money in a short time period, but it’s unsustainable in a long term. Constant expanding of pool of items you can get will alienate both old players and new players at some point and the game will just lose playerbase. Lootboxes earn a lot of money in short amount of time, but they also cause the game to fall rapidly.
Listen i get what you mean with “lesser evil” and all that. But since this game doesn’t have kids playing it your talk of “lesser evil” doesn’t really sink into the argument… This ain’t fortnite on a console machine… This game is too advanced for kids to grasp it… I don’t know if you actually think 10 year olds play this or not but the current loot system is not alienating me and im a player for hots since release. Never even bugged me… stop getting into the sunk ship of EA’s Battlefront 2 and try to drag HotS down with you…
Source of your claim? This game is 12+. It is marketed as such. So regardless of what you think, it is marketed to KIDS.
Dude stop assuming the worst case scenario when there’s no reports of gambling addiction because of loot-boxes… If it was dangerous for kids it’d be all over the news and gaming companies would literally be forced to remove it.
There’s no reports… The world contains horrible role-models in a more daily basis in our everyday lives… If we are to give into that HotS loot-box system is a danger for the kid’s future non-sense then we ought to ban and illegalize ALOT of damn stuff that exists ALL around the public sector…
Many things are bad for kids… There’s no reports that loot-box re-rolls within Blizzard games has any negative effect on children or grown-ups for that matter.
not true, bit.ly/2N59hmU