Investigating Overwatch's Stingy Loot System

[IamLEAM1983]

Have to really disagree with Yahtzee on this one. The "Loot system" of Overwatch was an afterthought - a fun little way to get some random goodies here and there. None of the items have any effect on gameplay. His complaints are petty and make it seem like Blizzard is "holding stuff hostage" from us.

What happened to the old days when people were able to enjoy video games without having to be pat on the back every X hours, given a random goodie, and told "well done! You have progressed!"

I'd have to agree. The per-level loot boxes have sufficed thus far, and I don't feel inclined to splurge money on virtual crap.

It's like there's a Completionist Police and they're gonna deck you if you're not out to obtain every single item for every single character - which is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not playing Overwatch for the levels or the loot, I'm playing Overwatch for the fun of casual objective-based team gameplay.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Have to really disagree with Yahtzee on this one. The "Loot system" of Overwatch was an afterthought - a fun little way to get some random goodies here and there. None of the items have any effect on gameplay. His complaints are petty and make it seem like Blizzard is "holding stuff hostage" from us.

What happened to the old days when people were able to enjoy video games without having to be pat on the back every X hours, given a random goodie, and told "well done! You have progressed!"

For you, but for some people those unlockable skins and tags and things are a big draw to a game with a progression system. Look at how much money gets spent on hats in TF2.

Even though Overwatch looks like a really fun game I'm not buying b/c I refuse to buy a game that then tries to extract further money from me with microtransactions. If you want to sell me DLC fine, but this whole "how we can restrict some part of the game to extract further money from players" game developers and publishers are playing really puts me off.

 

[SecondPrize]

Have to really disagree with Yahtzee on this one. The "Loot system" of Overwatch was an afterthought - a fun little way to get some random goodies here and there. None of the items have any effect on gameplay. His complaints are petty and make it seem like Blizzard is "holding stuff hostage" from us.

What happened to the old days when people were able to enjoy video games without having to be pat on the back every X hours, given a random goodie, and told "well done! You have progressed!"

Unlockables were all over the place. I owned more clothing and accessories in Virtua Fighter 4 evolution than I probably have owned in reality. You couldn't pay for the stuff either.

 

[deadish]

I believe there is a way to analytically calculate roughly how many loot boxes you will need. I would attempt it but my math isn't up to scratch ... so if anyone is good at combinatoric, please give it a shot.

Personal opinion time.

This game looks like a fully priced F2P game. LOL

Team Fortress 2 features roughly the same gachapon mechanics with its loot boxes and keys. Both games provide only cosmetic loot.

The F2p TF2 makes money from this system. Overwatch is doing the exact same thing except it has the cheek to charge you upfront too just to be able to play the game.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

-snip-

It isn't gimped to make you pay. That's player choice. Usually the "whales" are people who have more time than money on their hands, and don't mind supporting the gaming industry. Shame that you want to alienate them.

The speed at which crates are obtained is fair. You literally get a crate every couple of games.

As for sprays, you disliking and devaluing them is YOUR personal opinion. Personally, I like sprays. As for value, they're literally as worthless as all of the other cosmetics.

The system is healthy. Again, it's there for the long haul. Not to be breezed through in a week. It gives players a constant goal.

And frankly, the crate system would still be there without micro transactions. The loot crate system was generally liked before them, since a game which throws cosmetics at you every few rounds is praisable. But apparently, having micro transactions tacked on made it a target for criticism by some hypocrites.

And where did the term "Whales" come from for describing customers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_roller

That's right - CASINOS. Those lovely child friendly, family orientated bastions of societal good whose business practices of extracting funds from people we all want to expose our children to.

And Overwatch is for children. The age rating is minimum 10-12 depending on location.

So is it good that a game legally suitable for 10 year olds is encouraging gambling practices through random loot and customisation drops that you can pay real money for to receive randomised drops, with a potential cost of thousands of Dollars/Euros/Pounds to complete your collection?

This is gambling, just like the recent CSGO controversy - Real money is being put down for the potential to win customisations in the game. I do not think that this is a healthy system, and we are seeing these gambling mechanics become more and more blatant in full price games designed for younger and younger audiences. It's the reason that if I type "Child Spends Money" into Google I'm met with article after article of young children who have wasted thousands of their parents savings on videogame microtransactions, usually crap ipad games, but again it's becoming more and more entrenched in the AAA market, and that is something I hate to see.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

-snip-

Casinos don't give you value for money every time. Overwatch does.

Overwatch loot boxes can contain duplicates. One of the issues with their system is that you can spend real money just to get 4 items you already own, which are replaced by credits one fifth the value of the item. This means instead of getting the 4 new items you paid to get, you get 4/5 of one new item. I would not consider that value for money every time.

The CSGO controversy wasn't even about the crates. It was about pro players advertising betting sites that they secretly owned. Betting is getting squashed out, but CSGO crates are staying. I really don't see how you think this is relevant to Overwatch crates?

Whilst the CSGO controversy was more about the people shilling for their own sites, it was still an issue that they were encouraging their young audiences to gamble real money on their sites. I was making this comparison more to stress the fact that we are seeing more and more gambling practices in videogames, and that's wrong.

Also, the rate at which a F2P player will open a chest in CSGO is about 1 chest every 50 or so hours, if I'm being generous. The game rarely hands out keys. The rate at which an Overwatch player will open chests is about 1 chest every hour. About 2 chests an hour from levels 1 - 15, and levels reset every 100.

Assuming Yahtzee's calculations of 2500 loot boxes is accurate, and using your average box unlock time, that's a playtime of 2,312 hours to unlock everything.

Whilst that may be better than CSGO, it's still a colossal task, one which the game encourages people to chase through it's hero gallery display, whilst providing the tease of using your own money to decrease the grind.

And children can't buy micro transactions without parental consent. So even if it were gambling (which it isn't), then it'd still be the parents doing it, and not the child. It's the same as how a child is able to look at Casinos and slot machines, but they just can't sit at the table and play.

You're drawing up a bunch of very weak comparisons here that really don't support your point.

A parents credit card or paypal account can be linked to the Battlenet store. Once it's in the system then the child does not need the parents permission to make a second, or third, or one thousandth purchase. (Unless Blizzard have some extra special security I don't know about to stop that happening.) I know Amazon save my credit card details for ease of multiple purchases, and it's just a matter of clicking "Buy Now" because all the card info is already inputted into the website.
Luckily, it doesn't seem to have happened yet (or at least, if it has it hasn't made it's way onto the internet that I could find) but it is very possible that a kid could end up spending all the holiday money on Overwatch virtual cosmetic items. To be honest, it doesn't even have to be a child. Anyone who ends up spending excess amounts of their bank account on this game does it because of the gambling mechanic. Even a "Whale" who is smart enough to know better is put in this situation because of Blizzards adoption of very specific and deliberate gambling randomisation mechanics to take advantage of their customers who have already paid full price for the game.