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by tantivy
3140 days ago
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Maybe you've heard of Dota 2 or Overwatch, two massively profitable and popular games with no interactive content behind transactions. EA could have easily just made different cosmetic skins for the USS Enterprise (or whatever) with a hierarchy of rarities, stuck them in crates, and let the money roll in. |
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I agree with what you're saying, but there's a small amendment to that: with Overwatch, you can buy loot boxes for extra character skins or sprays. But the impact on the game is minimal[0]. Loot boxes start at $1 each (with volume discounts available), but you also get one for free every time you level up, which happens every 5 games or so[1], in addition to a loot box for every three arcade-mode games you win (up to three boxes per week).
In my mind, this is the right way to do it: the content is good enough to be engaging and worth paying a small amount of money for if you really want a certain skin, but you can also decide never to pay one cent after you initially buy the game and still feel like you're getting the full experience.
[0] There are a couple of cases where certain emotes can make it easy to hide in an unexpected location, affecting gameplay, but they're rare enough that the videos get shared widely, and once they're no longer secret, they don't impact the competitive meta-game measurably. In other words, it's self-correcting: there's no systematic way that buying loot boxes to get all the skins/emotes/sprays/etc. allows you to consistently improve your competitive advantage over other players.
[1] Depends on whether or not you win, how well you personally play in each round, whether you're in a group, etc.