The Video Game Industry

The Jimquisiton thread got locked for constantly going off topic, so I thought it was a good time to make this.

To be clear, this thread is not about video games themselves. We have a whole forum for that. This thread is about the industry as a whole and its practices. So talk about stuff like loot boxes, company mergers, worker treatment, etc.

Edited by Karxrida on Feb 4th 2021 at 10:52:40 AM

Great idea!

I once posted a vaguely similar thread in the Video Games subforum

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15955960110A65904600

But yeah, I agree with Fighteer, we should probably post some positive news as well.

I suppose I'll start with the Gacha model and how its influence has been steadily increasing over the last few years. Hopefully this is on-topic.

So ever since Genshin Impact exploded in popularity in September 2020 and made the gacha system mainstream (before, it was very niche), I've been reading a lot of discussions over how it'll eventually transform the game industry with a new and practical way to make a profit, and many western publishers and developers have begun to take notice. Now granted, the game itself is still new so it's a bit too early to determine the impact it will have in the future (no pun intended), but it's nonetheless a very intriguing thought.

What are your thoughts on this?

I think that the countries that outlawed lootboxes are the example that needs to be followed to prevent damage from becoming real.

I'm not too familiar with Gacha systems, what are the differences between that and the Loot Boxes preferred by western developers at the moment? I honestly thought Gacha was just the Japanese term for lootboxes.

My understanding: the main difference is that gacha mechanics have dynamic drop rates based on how many you've opened (Gambler's Fallacy made manifest) and/or whatever special event is going on (which there almost always is one, for the "free"-to-play games). Lootboxes have fixed drop rates, meaning getting a rare "drop" is a matter of pure chance.

The line between the two isn't always clear-cut (for example, Hearthstone has some gacha-like mechanics in determining the rarity of cards you get from its card packs, but is more in line with lootboxes overall), but this will give you a rough idea of how it works. At the end of the day, though, both are built around you spending real world money in order to try and get one or more virtual items.

Keyword here being "try". No one minds the regular, non-random in-game purchases anymore, but when it becomes a gamble...

Edited by Medinoc on Feb 4th 2021 at 11:45:55 AM

I'll say that at their most generous, some gacha games do allow even entirely free players to guarantee they get something they want from the otherwise luck-based system. The problem with that is that it often costs weeks worth of the drip-fed premium currency, or potentially hundreds of dollars (or equivalent) to just buy, and the rewards are never announced that far in advance, and they're often only available for a limited time, so you can't sit on the fence. That leaves the only option as saving blindly and hoping that it won't just be followed by another reward you want (in some cases, the pattern of release denies even that little hope because the good prizes are always grouped close together in their release windows).

Some news from yesterday: new Amazon CEO reaffirms commitment to game development. (Link is to Twitter since iirc Bloomberg has a subscription wall.)

I have no confidence in them. Their projects have been flops and all signs point to them continuing that trend.

Regarding gacha, as someone familiar with them but not lootbox games. I think the differences are blurry but still present.

I think the key difference is less how you're getting it and what you're getting. With lootboxes you're getting weapons and cosmetics usually. With gacha games, the system is instead the primary method of getting new characters. This in turn affects such factors such as fanbase growth, crossover plausibility, game balance and cast size.

Gacha games that focus on cards (Duel Links and I think Show By Rock!!) are a gray area.

I think genre might also be a factor here. Both are adaptable to any genre, but I think lootboxes tend to prefer Shooters (though that might just be Small Reference Pools on my part. Overwatch is the most infamous one I know), whereas gacha seems to favor JRPGs. They both seem to prefer genres where you can place multiple characters in the same map.

I do think they are both two sides of a coin, which for lack of a better term would be covered under the "gambling" umbrella.

A more surface level distinction is the emphasis on waifu culture, but that prolly a more minor difference compared to what else sets gacha games apart form lootbox games.

Regarding the Pity systems Toltemic hero brought up, I don't think that's a universal feature. Arknights has it, Magireco has it, FEH has it, but F/GO doesn't AFAIK and I don't think its the only one. I doa gree that it does seem like something that is more common in gacha games than lootbox games.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Feb 4th 2021 at 4:19:16 AM

I mean, if western developers want to go for the "obtaining characters through random wishes" method (yes, I'm calling them "wishes" because it's what Genshin Impact calls them and it's the only gacha game I played, so it's ingrained in my memory), then nothing's really stopping them from doing it if they see it as more profitable in the long run. Gacha itself already made that apparent in Japan, China and other Asian countries.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Feb 4th 2021 at 10:30:14 AM

Fair point, though I think western gacha games already exist (and that the memeticlaly infamous Raid: Shadow Legends might be one of them)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Feb 4th 2021 at 6:10:43 AM

Gacha is just the Japanese word for lootbox, same as manga is the Japanese word for comic.

I think of Gacha as 'Gotcha'

Gacha getcha gotcha

Seems entirely appropriate

In practical terms, yeah, gacha games tend to make the gacha part a major part of acquiring characters and things to power them at all, with things such as costumes (if they exist) either being just for sale or something that you can unlock. Let's see, out of things I've played... Fate/Grand Order you use it to acquire Servants (characters) and most Craft Essences (equippable power ups); Dragalia Lost it's characters and dragons (also characters), they removed the wyrmprints (equippables) from it; Granblue Fantasy it's weapons and summons, but weapons come with corresponding characters; Symphogear XDU you get the Symphogear cards and memoria (equippables again); Touhou Last Word (or Lost Word or whatever it is) you're rolling for characters and equippables. Genshin is the same boat, despite not being Japanese: roll for characters and things to equip them. You don't roll, you're not going to get to play with most of them. Then there's the things I'm not sure if they count... Arknights, Azur Lane, KanColle and I haven't played. There's also Girls Frontline where the chance of getting characters is random but it's completely free to get those materials (unless you are impatient as hell) but the more paid side of the gacha is for graphical stuff, so it's more like most lootbox games in that regard.

Then again, Battlefront II had that whole "lootbox to unlock characters" thing? It just seems to be which approach is more common across countries.

Nah, the first one is entirely up to the dev, as long as the rates are displayed and honest they can do whatever. To compare various games I mentioned:

• Grand Order has no guarantee. At all. You have the static odds and the rateup and that's it. Technically, it does have a backup but because you need to roll multiple excess copies of 5* characters to have enough mats to even get one exchange, it's something only the splurgiest of whales will even see, let alone use.
• Granblue Fantasy has, since some point in the past, implemented sparking: if you make 300 rolls on one banner, you can pick anyone on rateup on that banner. No gambling involved, just save up and you can get whoever.
• Genshin Impact you will always get a 5* within 90 rolls, and if you don't get a rateup the last time this came around, you get the character on rateup. This also applies for 4*'s (one every ten rolls minimum, every other 4* will be from the banner). If they ever do dual rateup 5* characters, you're probably going to have a coinflip to see which you get, though.
• Symphogear XDU has it basically spelled out on every banner how many rolls will get a guaranteed copy. It's generally quite low, but it's a game that demands multiple copies to really get a use out of them, so...

And then they're highly variable on how good the conversion between real world currency and in-game currency is, along with how abundant free currency is. Grand Order has one of the best money:rolls ratios if not the best, but your odds are garbage and there's no guarantee; Granblue seems like the stingiest but it at least gives you rolls if you buy something else and has a weird number of "buy almost any 5*" and free roll events (seriously, I barely played it but made an account beginning of 2019; picked up something like 60 5* characters from them); XDU has a lot of free currency and the cost isn't too bad... but one copy isn't enough etc.

It's hard to say which one is the most predatory approach, but per game I'd say Grand Order is the worst. You're never guaranteed to get the 5* and the biannual guaranteed 5* banners have always been a random selection based on class. It's way too likely you can buy ~£400+ worth of in-game currency (360 rolls) and get no 5* at all, or one that isn't on the banner. Or save up all year and not get something. Everything else at least has some sort of guarantee lurking.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, Dragalia does adjust the drop rate as you roll more, so in that regard it does fit the literal description, but as should be obvious, that makes it a bit of an outlier. Maybe Fire Emblem Heroes went the same way but I only briefly touched on that.

Edited by RainehDaze on Feb 5th 2021 at 3:41:51 PM

The appearance of gacha games is not to be wholly unexpected from a behavioralist perspective: it is the only logical conclusion after the skinner box fuckfest that are MMOs.

I do not think the industry is going to change much because Asia does not have a big history of regulating gambling, the European Union is kinda toothless when attacking it, the U.S does fuckall to reglate it, and Latin America is a 0 to the left.

All in all, videogame companies have every incentive to ramp up the gambling mechanics and addictive properties of videogames more and more.

Activision Accused Of Stealing Call Of Duty Character

I'm having trouble following the conversation. Not to slow anything down, but could someone quickly summarize what "lootboxes" are and how they work? As context, I've never played any of these games, but my children do, and I would like to understand them better without committing several hundred hours to playing one.

I'll try to summarize what I know of the term. *ahem*

Lootboxes are a mechanic that always grant randomized rewards, but are also usually done for a fee. The drops could either have no impact on your gameplay (cosmetics), little impact or a large impact that divides the haves("whales") and have-nots, and the nature of this is gambling by design.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Feb 5th 2021 at 8:40:40 AM

In the simplest form, lootboxes take a form of premium currency (usually both earnable in-game and purchasable with real money) and randomly distribute rewards in return. These rewards may be purely cosmetic, but frequently are directly tied to gameplay.

Edit:

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Feb 5th 2021 at 11:40:28 AM

I'm going to write out a long, detailed post and I know I'll be ninjaed by the short version, but here goes anyway.

"Loot boxes" is a term for a specific type of microtransaction found in many games. In these transactions, you purchase (using real money or in-game currency that can be obtained with real money) a pack, box, crate, or some other representation of a container. This container, when opened, awards randomized or semi-randomized items that purportedly enhance your game experience.

One common example is card packs in collectible card games, and this variant has an explicit real-world analogy. If you buy a pack of Pokémon cards in your local store, you don't know what's in each specific pack until you open it, but you do know that there is a certain chance of getting any particular card. In Hearthstone, you also build a library of cards that you can play in the game, but this library is entirely digital and so are the "packs" that you purchase.

In games like Fortnite or Overwatch, you instead get crates that contain randomized cosmetic items, gear, powerups, or other bonuses. Some of these may be purchased directly and some are only available in the loot boxes. These items may or may not confer a gameplay advantage, but even cosmetic upgrades can be seen as highly desirable by players.

You don't always have to buy the loot boxes. Most games award a small number for regular gameplay, but it's rarely enough to "keep up" with people who spend real money, since the most powerful and most desirable items are correspondingly rare and so you can spend a ton of money trying to obtain them.

Loot boxes have been compared to gambling for several reasons. The randomized rewards mean you don't know if any given amount of money you spend will give you something you desire. This creates an incentive to continue buying them until you get what you want, manipulating both the gambler's fallacy and the sunk cost fallacy. Further, these games create enormous social pressure to have the "best" gear and cosmetics, something that is blatantly encouraged by their publishers.

There are countless stories of children depleting their parents' bank accounts or maxing out credit cards attempting to get desirable rewards in these games. The FIFA series of soccer (football for decadent Europeans) games is a notorious offender in this regard. The mechanics intentionally predate on people with addictive personalities, who are regarded by the games' publishers as "whales".

Loot boxes have come under increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny in the past few years and many governments are considering actions against them, which include but are not limited to:

• Requiring all games containing randomized transactions to display a warning label.
• Requiring publishers to publicly disclose the probability of obtaining any given item.
• Rating all games with randomized transactions "M" or an equivalent to prevent children from buying them.
• Banning such transactions entirely.

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 5th 2021 at 11:48:20 AM

Simple version: play game/level, get to roll on in-game reward. May involve in-game currency and can be bought with real world money.

Edit: I thought I pressed post like ten minutes ago.

Well, whales are normally the people who spend a lot, which isn't always those with addictive personalities. There are some people who just have the funds to do so.

Edited by RainehDaze on Feb 5th 2021 at 4:52:09 PM

Thank you for the explanations. I think I've seen some of these mechanics in my childrens' games, esp. my son, who is a "Clash of Clans" fanatic.