[nindalf]

I played Dota for years without ever feeling the need to spend on cosmetics. Valve prides themselves on a free-to-play, pay-to-look-fancy-in-game model. I didn’t care about the looks, so I played the game for free.

Other games have a free-to-play but pay-to-win model. League of Legends requires you to pay if you want to play with the newer, more powerful characters. Hearthstone is free to play but adds newer, more powerful cards every season. Building a competitive deck of cards could cost $150-200 per season.

That’s not to say I like this lootbox bullshit. It preys on people who have a weakness for gambling. If I were wired differently I could have spent thousands on them. I think they should be regulated out of existence.

[spicypineapple]

You can, over time, unlock the new characters in League of Legends without having to pay real money though, right?

[acid__]

It’s true, but new characters are very “expensive”, even in the free currency. I have an embarrassing number of hours in league (4 digits) and do not have all the characters unlocked. Compare to Dota where I had every character unlocked at hour zero.