Loot Boxes

Someone who's as interested in video games as I am should probably have big, important opinions about loot boxes. A random in-game item or appearance modifier, usually obtained through payment of real earth dollars. Like those "Gashopon" vending machines in Japan.


Over the last year I've read about them a lot, and about whether they count as gambling, if they're immoral, if they're harmful to video games as a whole and so on and so forth.


I don't disagree. But I also don't know if I agree either.


I really don't know where I stand on the issue. Maybe because I'm sympathetic to game devs trying to recuperate ballooning costs in making games these days. Maybe because I haven't seen too many outrageous examples(and when I do, it's usually EA being EA).


Also, I don't really have any better suggestions for what game companies could be doing instead. Paid loot boxes in online games seems to me like a crude band-aid solution. Something to buy some time before a better idea can come along. I don't have that Better Idea, though.

The argument could be made that they're manipulative, or that they take advantage of people with gambling addictions. Those are valid concerns, and I feel particularly useless that I don't have a better alternative in mind. I'll just have to wait and see how this pans out.


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~A.H.