If you’ve played any game in recent years you’ll be all too aware of the big push for microtransactions and everything they encompass – it’s won’t be too surprising for many given the risen in popular for online betting and gambling services as states change their regulation around online gambling like the recent adjustment for Michigan Lottery with the best found here, but one of the big targets in particular over the past couple of years has been around the growing problem with loot boxes. Whilst they have been around in one form or another in the Gachapon system of older eastern titles, they largely became popular back in 2013 when the popular esports title of Counter-Strike introduced them and build a whole market for cosmetics trading around loot boxes themselves.
With such a big, and expensive, industry growing in the way it did, a lot of attention was drawn and eventually changes would follow as countries throughout Europe initiated change that would require more transparency present for many of these boxes which led to odds needing to be displayed for those participating, amongst many other changes. Other recent changes in countries such as the Netherlands have led to loot box changes that mean the cosmetics inside cannot be traded or sold to other players in a bid to slow the problems seen in recent years.
The question now for many is whether or not loot boxes will continue to be a target for change – the end of 2020 saw the end of a probe for the UK to search for those who feel loot boxes have had a negative impact on them, it does signal that there is at least one big probe left to be figured out which could initiate major change but there has since been a lot more silence on the issue. Other gaming options have already moved away from this approach too, big names like Riot Games’ Valorant have instead took to focussing on direct sales through a rotating store to avoid the problem side of loot boxes as a whole, and an expectation that newer titles may instead move away from the same approach in a similar way.
Either way, it’s a time for change, many consumers have become frustrated with the big push for microtransactions and the way they have had a big impact on the gaming market as a whole, given many feel important features have been locked behind MTX – whilst loot boxes are typically just a focus on cosmetic items instead, there are many who consider it to be just as big a problem, and many waiting for their wider spread removal from the many games they currently occupy.
(Featured Image from eurogamer.net)