What many people don’t seem to understand is this:
The general price of skins would only change marginally. Noone talks about eliminating any free stuff when they say that loot boxes are bad. Those are aforementioned goody bags, but that’s not the issue.
With loot boxes: you pay/wait on average x amount of time for on average y reward
Without loot boxes: you pay/wait exactly x (or x*1.1 to make the economic argument) for exactly y reward.
You don’t enforce addictive behaviour, you don’t take away free stuff, you simply make it so that people can actually get the stuff they want instead of taking a gamble on it. There will still be the completionists, there will still be the overspenders, but they can actually choose what they want instead of relying on the luck of the draw.
if it were 10 dollars per item, i simply wouldn’t buy it, 10$ for a pack of items that contained the exact one i want? maybe… but at least i’m guaranteed to get the item i want… and not forced to open 60 loot boxes and unfortunately be unlucky enough to get the zarya power ranger legendary 3 times and nothing else…
take TF2 for instance… never once bought the game… however, i did spend actual money in the shop buying the exact items i wanted for my loadouts, and to make my main merc look spiffy and the way i wanted them to look, overall spent about 30$ which for a 10+yo game is a pretty penny… not once did i open one of those stupid war crates…
What about the free stuff you get by leveling up?
The current microtransaction system does reward long time members because you can’t get duplicates until you have every item of the same rarity, and if you do, you get currency, allowing you to buy items you don’t have.
I, for instance, finally got all rare items so now I get a bit of currency. I slowly get enough money to buy all skins I want.
It allows you to get every item without even paying money. If we want to translate it in a shop, Blizzard would use the same as mobile games, meaning overpriced currency and tedious farming.
Would this be better?
In overwatch, you cant open more then 20 boxes without getting one legendary.
There is a pity timer, and at the 19th box its hits 100% chance for a legendary.
Just like hearthstone(its just set at 40 for hearthstone). Trying to look for the souse for this since i know someone opened like 10k lootboxes to test this out (just like on hearthstone) but its long gone i guess.
I just hope that this wasn’t up-dated or something and i’m making a spectacle out of myself.
Just found this.
“Blizzard also revealed these figures for Hearthstone, and it’s more or less what players have known for a while. 1 rare per pack. 1 epic every five packs. 1 legendary every 20 packs. And players have deduced there’s a 40 pack “pity timer” which will give you a legendary automatically if you go that long without one. I believe the pity timer for Overwatch may be 25 boxes”
Well, without clear evidence, we have to take this argument with a grain of salt. After all, it would contradict the testimonies of others where they got a legendary item after 20 lootboxes.
What we know for sure is that, in order to get at least one legendary lootbox, you need to open at least:
- 9 for a 50% chance
- 30 for a 90% chance
- 51 for a 98% chance
- 90 for a 99.9% chance
Looking at those probabilities, it would seem plausible that most players get their legendary item with their 20th to 30th lootbox if they were unlucky. If they were even more unlucky, they end up like Badafarusima.
The probabilities are extremely high at around 30 lootboxes. This phenomenon in probability may have lead to people think that there is a pity timer.
If you’re interested, in this post, I calculated the probability for those cases.
Loot boxes are garbage - #11 by FatBluDragon-2951
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i, like many people… are never lucky in RNG systems… so in order for me personally to get every rare and legendary item to then actually get duplicates… i have to earn hundreds of thousands of lootboxes… which is impossible unless i buy them, which i refuse to do
what would be better, is if i could buy the thing i want, and leave the rest like a game that is consumer friendly such as TF2
Im just glad i got witch mercy on release date, so far the only loot box skin i really cared for. Like if i didn’t get it, i was ready to dump money xD.
And I, like many others, are lucky in RNG games and get what I desire.
Sorry, but your anecdotal evidence is just as weak as mine.
Besides, you are over lvl 600. You should have duplicate items already, granting you currency, and with all the items you have, your chances of getting a new skin is even higher.
I wanna say, the moment they reduced the dup chance, was the moment i stopped making mad money for event skins. Use to be able to save like up to 40k now its down to 10k at best close to 20k.
not enough to buy what i want… so i dont bother and blizzard doesn’t get extra money out of me shrugs
Yup, same reason for me. I’m not gonna pay any lootboxes because if I pay, I want to get the Item I like.
This is why I don’t buy lootboxes and just earn them in-game.
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and because im not lucky enough with RNG like you, i just have to stick to vanilla
And because I’m lucky enough with RNG unlike you, I don’t have to stick to vanilla.
Now, could you try another non-anecdotal argument or does this discussion need to go in circles?
I think he used sarcasm on the “My RNG is lucky” part, chill. xD
Then get out of here! This is a discussions forum, not a pity forum.
I could take it in a sarcastic manner but I actually didn’t. Just proved that the same anecdotal argument can be used against him.
I’m a glutton for discussions after all. 
You have a silver border… you probably got more than 1000 loot boxes just by playing the game. Law of large numbers applies.
Gambling is defined as
- play games of chance for money; bet.
- take risky action in the hope of a desired result.
Lootboxes have a chance to give you money and also we open them in the hope of decent loot. Countries have banned lootboxes due to their gambling laws such as Belgium.
what you are suffering from is Atychiphobia. The fear of being wrong.
If it is only a silver border then that is 601 lootboxes.
Alcohol and food have nothing to do with lootboxes. If you buy lootboxes there is your risk. you are betting your own money on a chance to get a skin or cosmetic you want. Free lootboxes are there in an attempt for you to buy lootboxes as a marketing scheme. oh and sadly for you but your “I dont care about government agencies” argument is just you saying your wrong. The government makes the law if you like it or not. You are just stuck up and don’t know when to stop.