Topic: Game Developers think Loot Box regulation is "censorship"

hey has anybody seen this, game developers think regulating loot boxes is "censoring" of their games

what a load of Bull, it's about protecting people from their predatory gambling system

http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/27/game-developers-call-loot-box-r...

what do you think about this?

Do they also think age restrictions are censorship?

@KratosMD to be fair Loot Boxes would be fine IF it wasn't for the way they are currently being implemented, if they was used to add to a game, to enhance the experience which they can do then i'm sure a lot of people wouldn't be making such a fuss BUT it's when they purposely cripple a game just so they can try to force you to buy them then it's wrong

as for other way they can make money off their games, well we already have DLC but i imagine that doesn't make a whole lot because they have to spend money to create it but they could always increase the price of games that's one way plus there is also in game advertisements, where the company your advertising for pays you to put their products in games, that's another way of making more money

like i said the loot boxes themselves isn't the problem, it's how the developers and publishers are using them that is

If games do not generate profit then they are failures. The companies have a responsibility to their employees and shareholders (if applicable). So if adding loot boxes means a game turns a profit rather than a loss I have no issue with it.

@KratosMD true what about going completely digital it would help by cutting the costs of manufacturing the games as they wouldn't need to print discs, that would save them some money

what would you do if it was you?

@KratosMD I'd like to write an extensive reply, so I'll get back to you in a few hours

@KratosMD Whilst game complexity has increased they have also many more tools to create a lot of aspects much quicker too. Some of the increased cost has to go to things like mo-capping and hiring of well known actors to do voice work. Of course the general costs of running a studio and developer wages have gone up but there is also a big element of greed involved too. AAA games only need to sell a few million to be profitable and its mostly the 'big' games - like CoD, Destiny, Fifa etc that have 'loot' boxes - the ones that are profitable within the first week of going on sale. The publishers like Activision and EA are increasing profits despite releasing fewer games. EA for example didn't release enough games last year to even make the 'large' publishers list with Metacritic (the list that recently came out with Bethesda at the top for the highest rated games of 2017). That list required 12 games (1 a month effectively) to be released but EA dropped into the mid-size publishers (releasing 6-11 games).

The thing with 'loot boxes' is that its 'easy money'. Very little cost to make with massive revenue potential. Its a lot cheaper than making a game and the profit margin is massive. Because companies like Activision can increase their annual profit by $2bn by selling Loot Boxes alone, ALL the other publishers want a slice of that pie.

You also have to consider the fact that these Publishers are losing less money to the 2nd hand market too as Digital sales are on the rise - thus less games being traded and more sold at the higher end of the pricing structure.

A game like Mass Effect: Andromeda, despite being a 'flop' in terms of sale figures, was still profitable for EA. That game cost around $40m to make (according to some sources and similar cost to H:ZD). Even the Reboot of Tomb Raider, which was very expensive to make (~$100m) - more so than these, only needed to sell ~3m to be profitable but sales were 'slow' initially so Profit wasn't achieved very quickly. Very few games cost more than $100m but a game like Destiny ($140m inc marketing) sold over $500m at retail on Day 1.

You talk about rising costs but all that equates to is having to sell a few more copies of a game. Very few games have cost as much to make as Final Fantasy 7 in 1997 either. A game like Final Fantasy XV, a game 10yrs in the making, broke even on day 1. Within the first twenty-four hours, Square Enix reported that Final Fantasy XV had shipped five million units worldwide in both physical shipments and digital sales—a figure which allowed the game to "break even" on development costs. In May 2017, Square announced the game and Rise of the Tomb Raider helped to increase sales and profits for the 2016-2017 fiscal year. In a later interview, Enterbrain president Hirokazu Hamamura stated that the game had sold seven million copies worldwide as of January 2018, ranking it as a "huge success". This for one of the most expensive games ever. Point is, that all of these are still profitable with 'relatively' small sales. 5m for a game like FFxv to break even for a game 10yrs in development and a massive budget compared to the majority of games which generally cost $40-50m to make. I know that sounds incredibly big for us who think $100k would be a massive windfall if we won that but for EA, Activision etc, that's less than a Month's profit. Games may be rising in cost - that game that cost $30m to make 5/10yrs ago, would now cost $35m but then its still profitable within the first week so all those Loot boxes are just GREED!!!!

Apologies to all for the waffle on but this is something I do feel strongly about.

Firstly, I don't accept the whole games cost a lot ot make argument therefore they need to have things like lootboxes. I've listened to both sides (interesting back and forth between Extra Credits and Jim Sterling on this one if anyone is interested in this kind of thing) and to me, it doesn't work. Major publishers, are turning increasing profits every year. Fine, that is what businesses need to do. However if a company IS returning record profits, how can they not afford to make games? That also shouldnt allow them to dilute their products with something that affects their quality.

To be clear, there are lots of monetization models that exist and can reasonably used to cover the cost of game development. Big free to play games have done this very well. There is DLC, there are season passes, there are multiple editions, there are micro transactions for skins etc. These are what most companies have been using to drive profit from their games. This is the point of the games as a service model.

The issue with all these models is that they are optional. If I like a game, I may buy the DLC, I may buy a skin, I may buy a season pass. So how to get people to buy them? Well publishers have different ways of accomplishing this. The best way for the consumer is make a good game, at a fair price, and/or release solid content that people want to pay more for. E.g. The Witcher 3. Non consumer friendly practices are locking good content off behind MT's or DLC/Season Passes (Injustice 2 for example). Even worse, and what we are seeing though is changing the game to make players want to inveset more money, making games grindier, less fun to make someone open their wallet. This is on products you have paid for.

Why I think lootboxes are the very worst of the worst though is two fold. Firstly, with games being made worse to make players consider paying, they aren't even paying to get something. They are paying for the chance to get something which means it can coerce players into spending even more on something. Secondly, they are designed as a dopamine hit, the gambling sweet spot. Sure, legally it might not be gambling but it uses all the tricks that gamblers use.

The idea that it is a curb on creative freedom is amusing. If a product can be proved to risk any harm to a consumer, it has to be highlighted or restricted. To me, lootboxes are something that should be locked behind age restrictions.

@Rudy_Manchego you make a lot of good points there but i don't think loot boxes should be locked behind a age restriction because they CAN be implemented properly, Dissidia NT for example has what it calls a "Treasure" system BUT you don't spend any real money at all, instead you get Treasure Chests through game play and these give you a random object from the in game Gil store for free (you also gain Gil from playing the game too) such as character skins, icons or more music tracks for background during fights so you can save the Gil you earn for the items you want, the Gil encourages you to keep playing and the treasures reward you

not a single real world penny is able to be spent in the game, you can't buy Treasure or Gil, everything is eared in game but it still uses a loot box system

i think that if a game uses loot boxes it should have to say on the box that it does, the price range they have and what the odd are of getting things through them, giving people the information they need about just how the game in question uses them

@FullbringIchigo Oh sorry, to clarify I only meant paid loot boxes in my rant. Anything provided as an ingame reward is just gameplay. I guess you could argue it is still giving you the dopamine hit but then the only way to get that hit is to play the game more, which is what good games make you want to do.

@Rudy_Manchego oh OK although i do still think paid loot boxes can be done right too, it's just that at the moment they aint doing it right, Overwatch does for example it's all cosmetic and doesn't impact the game play in anyway

So comapnaies are not allowed to make money?? Ok then that's makes sense. And with out the loot box system games would be alot more expensive then $60. Then the masses would be crying about that.

You know, simple solution here, don't buy loot boxes.

@Tasuki honestly i wouldn't mind if games had a small increase in cost to cover the increased cost of production, in the UK a game goes for £40-£50 on average so say an extra £10 would be fine

the issue here is though developers saying that regulating loot boxes is censoring them but i don't think that is the case, tobacco and alcohol is a regulated product for example but they are not censored same as casinos, it's not like the name of a beer has to be blurred out on the shop shelf after all

In principal, there is nothing wrong with publishers wanting to make more Profit - after-all that is what successful Businesses should do. However, when it comes to taking out content (even if its just cosmetic items), in-game rewards (like ships/sparrows in Destiny 2) etc for the sole purpose of ripping off the fan base for 'pure' profit, that is greed.

I have nothing against the RNG Loot box in games - I think these make a 'decent' reward. Getting a Random Loot box at the end of a match for playing - even tiered depending on whether you win/lose or do well or not - something to incentivise continued playing, I have absolutely no issue with these at all. I have a moderate issue with selling 'cosmetic' only items - like an armour set or Camo (for all weapons not just a camo for a specific weapon) for a 'small' real money fee - a 'short-cut' if you want to getting the complete armour/weapon set that had eluded you from the in-game RNG loot box - as long as its selling you EXACTLY what you want and that item is Cosmetic ONLY. I have more issue with games that sell 'in-game' currency to purchase loot boxes, extra saves, extra create a class slots or ANY 'in-game' items that should be in the game (and certainly are). I guess if it makes it easier to implement the second point (i.e selling Cosmetic only items) rather than clog up the digital store with loads of MicroDLC's. Sell the currency to buy those items only rather than sell the items in the store (if that makes sense). What I object to the most though is that they are selling 'random chances' to get the items you want. Often the cosmetics are no different from each other. Essentially having 2-3 designs but with differing colours - the Red being somehow 'Exotic' and yellow being common for example.

The fact is that Publishers know damn well they couldn't sell that red exotic camo for $60 so they deliberately put it behind RNG with a low chance to get it knowing that people won't see the cumulative cost of spending $5 here and another $5 there. At best they know they could only get away with charging $2-3 for that. They also know that if they sold the items individually, maybe a lot more people would buy the odd item here and there but they wouldn't get the Whales that spend $100's - in fact the whole set of Cosmetics' wouldn't cost $100 so overall, their profit again wouldn't be so high. Lets be honest all of this is still pure profit and they could still just sell the items directly for pure profit but its GREED that makes them implement RNG. Its GREED that makes them want to employ psychologists to find ways of bleeding their gamers dry of every penny/cent they have.

There are far better ways of increasing profit for themselves without ripping off their core audience. If Loot Boxes are 'banned', These Publishers won't suddenly become bankrupt - like I said, they are making more money a month than it costs to make a game Fifa is worth $800m+ a year in profit for EA alone and that's enough to make 20 AAA games (The Witcher 3 cost $35m to make so that shows what can be achieved with ~$40m). Of course games are a gamble but like I said, ME:A was profitable - even if it wasn't a big seller. Just think how much more money EA could have made off the game with more polish and time, a bit more investment. Maybe with a few cheap cosmetic micro-transactions, DLC Maps, modes and/or Story, that game could well of been far more profitable and EA wouldn't look like the 'greedy' [add your own expletive] that we gamers see them as today. Its the same with SW:BF2 and NFS: Payday. Both of these had the potential to be massive and lucrative games for EA - far more than they were. SW:BF2 could of exceeded its predecessor, be one of, if not the biggest games of the year with Massive profits - even before DLC or selling a 'few' micro-transactional cosmetic only items. They could of sold a 'clone wars' cosmetic bundle for a $3-4's that changed the outfits/weapon/ships skins to be 'Clone war era' for example if 'everything' else was in the game and unlockable from the start. Its 'purely' cosmetic micro-transaction that has NO impact on the game and sold as a complete set - not a random chance to unlock each bit individually as well as countless other 'junk' that is added just to minimise your chance of getting exactly what you want.

As I said, the Loot Box system is PURE GREED! There are many other ways that publishers could make 'extra' profit, could improve both game sales (which in turn also increases profit) as well as improve customer satisfaction etc, without resulting in these practices.

Its like say battery farming animals and feeding them on the cheapest food with maybe some steroid or growth hormone to maximise the quantity of product, minimise the time it takes to get to 'harvest' all to make much more Profit. There are alternatives to making more money from farming animals without going to this extreme - OK so the Profits won't be as high but at least they are on the moral high-ground, know they are producing the 'finest' quality and the respect of their customers.

If you don't like loot boxes, you should think it's wrong. If people get upset enough over them to negatively affect the company, then it's wrong because it's bad for the company. I don't think prices will go up if loot boxes go out the window. I don't think they're morally wrong, no one is gong to hell or getting locked out of Valhalla here, but I won't complain about them being removed. It's not censoring either. That would be require something getting banned. I also think it's a bit of a buzz word being used here as there's a lot of anti-censoring feelings around - so the word gets improperly to used to stir up negative feelings about the issue.

@KratosMD I'm late to the party, but @BAMozzy has already covered all of my points (and far better than I could've done it).

@Octane yeah @BAMozzy has a way with words doesn't he, it may be big posts but he certainly gets his point across

It's definitely not censorship but the way this is happening, with big government meddling, is not a rabbit hole we should want to go down regardless of what people think of loot boxes (a problem easily solved by simply doing research and not buying them from companies you feel are abusing the business model, but in the trophy participation era of today you can't expect people to do things for themselves I guess). It starts with elected officials saying 'slap this on the box' and once they know they can get something like that done, the envelope will be pushed. I don't blame developers for being nervous, especially given how ridiculous people act over everything these days. It's fine to voice concerns, criticisms, I do it all the time but at a certain point actions need to speak louder. If I don't like something, I don't buy it, but the last thing I want to see is the government stepping in and forcing the issue. Everybody should be concerned over that.

Watch this. It's not too long, but the relavant part is at 1:45. It fits this statement so perfectly. Off topic, but it's too good to pass up.

I love a good loot box. Problem is the games I play never seem to have them