> ... so it is a bit like gambling ...
I hate what video games have become.
I think this is more than anything, an app store sickness.
It has spread a little to consoles and desktop, but I can still buy a 100% offline, single player game, which has the main purpose of entertaining me.
It has a story, a point to it, a mystery often, fun things to do which aren't mining or grinding away.
I pay 80 bucks for the privilege, and am quite happy to do so. It is worth it, giving me many hours of entertainment.
Some boast "oh I finished the game first run through in 8 hours" Really? Such players just ignore all the scenery, don't really explore, don't grasp the full mystery, just... fast fast! Gotta get this over with!
I play and take in the scenery, and games like the Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn are fun, take 50 to 100 hours to play this way.
Just reading things in-games, clues, discovering how these worlds got this way was 1/2 the fun of the game!
So stop playing on your portable addiction device. Its hold is more devious too, as it is always in your pocket.
Your PC, console, are with you on the bus. At work. In the kitchen.
Return to us, good sir. Return to real gaming.
again this doesn't impact the gameplay at all and I'm happy to earn some money. was able to buy another title on steam with the money accrued
That doesn't mean it isn't fun to do so, although there's a very high chance you'll come to regret the number of hours pumped into such games and the way they kept you engaged in their dopamine loop.
It's not a bit like gambling, it's exactly gambling and the predatory nature of it is what I hate about video games.
people bet on soccer too but that shouldn't stop you from getting excitement from it.
In my home country (Belgium) and my neigboring country (Netherlands) a lot of games their lootboxes are not available for us for the reason that the game-creators do not advertise the dropchances like the lottery, casino's and other gambling games are forced to do.
The reasoning is that the items that come out of the lootbox have a monetary value (as you need to pay to unlock a lootbox) so they fall under some of our gambling laws.
In my eyes, good riddance and I hope more countries will follow.
So Valve, EA Games,... just disabled opening lootboxes for us as they seem to be afraid to advertise the "drop chances" (but we can still buy and sell them)
it just so happens that I seem to get good cases that I was able to sell for a bit of change but it is not like you can play 20 hours every week and make consistent money.
With CSGO third parties were essentially selling games for actual currency instead of credit with Valve and using skins as currency for gambling on esports matches. A few of them also came up with other gambling games that didn't even involve esports.
It was also a great vehicle for money laundering: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/oct/30/counter-strike...
Wild times.
simply because it actually pays to play. I've made about $20 bucks this month from just selling cases given out randomly at the end of each match. It cost me nothing to buy yet the in game items (cosmetic skins that don't influence gameplay) regularly sell for good money.
it also make sense to buy the keys to unlock the cases sometimes simply because you might unlock a skin that fetches far more money. so it is a bit like gambling in that aspect.
i'm just constantly amazed how they were able to pull the economics behind this. clearly the ppl who expect a 10~100x ROI on their keys must outnumber those selling the cases. I mean I can imagine a bunch of people just farming cases day and night. Perhaps even a sophisticated AI could pull it off since the in game drops aren't even correlated with your performance.
even more impressive is how this is all legal since it really is gambling of sorts.