Re:This Dumb Industry: Wilson Boxes
by TimPC on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @12:24PM
(#15862894)
Loot boxes are a similar level of gambling to opening a pack of magic cards or baseball cards, but for digital objects. Is there randomness? Yes. Does it affect the value of what you open? Yes. Is the primary purpose of the thing being bought the money itself? No. Loot boxes were essentially the main pitch for the Diablo I computer game but it was eventually stripped from the game.
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| on HN ]
> Loot boxes were essentially the main pitch for the Diablo I
Having not played Diablo, I'm not very familiar with the history.
I know DII at least had a significant secondary player market for items, but the idea of loot boxes being "the main pitch" is new to me.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
The original pitch for Diablo was to build the game with booster packs sellable in stores that added items and skills to characters. They eventually built it with the entire game being self contained, rather than the booster model. But the pitch notes were on HN a year or so back and it was basically attempting to copy the M:TG business model.