#Loot locker for baseball cards update
When Monolith caved to pressure and ripped loot boxes out of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, the update made it very clear how much the loot box system was unbalancing a game that people were already paying $60 retail on. Topps and Wizards of the Coast are also not trying to ruin their products by forcing people to keep spending money for random prizes. Some games do allow trades with some restrictions, but it’s by no means universal. There are lot of characters I have boosts for that I don’t really use and would happily trade to others for if I could level up my Ms. I’d love it if games with loot boxes allowed for trades. Sure, some cards are worth literally worth their weight in gold, but the purpose is to get what you want, not a nebulous status boost based on random factors. I can go to a Friday Night Magic event at a local comic store and talk to other players. If I want a particular Magic card, I can find people online willing to trade or sell me that exact card for a price. Games like Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! are called trading card games for a reason. Read up on the subject of the “hat economy” in Team Fortress 2 sometime and tell me it doesn’t look more like wealth addiction than a stamp collection. They often give play advantages or serve as status symbols. You do see some of that in gaming, but unlike cards or comics the things you are collecting in video games have a definite capitalistic success drive. It’s actually an important developmental milestone in children.
One is that collecting for its own sake is a hobby. This is easily the most ridiculous defense of loot boxes yet.Ĭard collecting has aspects that loot boxes mostly lack. “Are baseball cards going to be banned now, too?” I’ve seen in many, many comment sections. However, one truly baffling defense I’ve seen deployed en mass is that loot boxes are comparable to baseball card packets. Loot boxes as an institution are no different. They can be pathologically defensive of things which are objectively harmful and hide behind concepts like freedom and the market in order to explain away anything that criticizes something that has become core to their identity. Many gamers – as I have pointed out before – can be counted on to react like the religious right in response to a moral crisis involving the industry. They are bad and need at least some legislation if the industry won’t fix the problem itself. Loot boxes are randomized goods in exchange for cash expertly crafted to appeal to the same human impulses a slot machine does, except here they are unregulated and marketed to children. YouTuber Jim Sterling has been covering this subject marvelously for years now, and I feel no need to go over ground he has so beautifully trod. The United Kingdom has tracked a rise in problem gambling behavior in young people, and they lay at least some of the blame on loot boxes targeted at children. Several countries such as Belgium and The Netherlands have already instituted laws banning them for that reason.
#Loot locker for baseball cards free
In free to play games, they even sort of make sense, although it doesn’t change the fact that they are gambling and possibly predatory. These loot boxes are beloved by game makers because they provide a steady stream of additional revenue above and beyond the retail price, as well as making money from the re-sell market. Said currency is usually awarded through play, but can also be purchased with real-world money, something often called micro-transactions.
They are generally power-ups or cosmetic features that are randomly generated by paying in-game currency. The Federal Trade Commission is finally investigating loot boxes in video games for their connection to gambling, and there have been some truly ridiculous defenses against that.įor those who aren’t gamers, loot boxes are a concept in gaming that are extremely controversial.
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