A heart for Lootboxen: You are not as bad as your reputation

Lootboxes are probably most heavily hit mechanics in video games. You can destroy the balance of a games and may cause dependency. Various scandals and a political debate on international level inclusive. And yet I am a fan of Lootboxen. Provided the mechanics is implemented correctly.

• The blind hatred on Lootboxen
• Not all Lootboxes are bad

The blind hatred on Lootboxen

"What to hell?" If one or the other reader will most likely think about the headline of this article. And while on Facebook already angry comments only be typed on the basis of the heading , I would like to read the article that appears to read the article. Invite briefly to my mind.

I understand that the headline "a heart for Lootboxes" triggered enormously. After all, Lootboxes are considered the spearhead of the hated microtransaktions and are symbolically for everything wrong in the gaming industry.

You have spread like the plague about the video game industry and are responsible for why games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 or the various FIFA offshoots in the general public have a rather questionable call .

Especially in the smartphone section, the colorful boxes are now standard and a hand-tight problem . Although they are mostly minor players to permanently investigate genuine money into the games called Slot Machines .

Mobile games should not go in this article. Rather, it is important to note that I am very well aware of the author of this comment on the negative influence and the many problems in connection with Lootboxes.

And that leads me to the following thesis: Lootboxes are not the same Lootboxen.

Although the mechanics works predominantly the same, so a digital box contains a random digital content, but The implementation is crucial for me . Really reacted, the otherwise hated Lootbox mechanics can be wonderfully motivating and rewarding **. And without the negative taste of real money and pay2win.

Not all Lootboxes are bad

An excellent example of this is Forza Horizon 5 . The Microsoft exclusive racing game has a sophisticated Lootbox mechanics. Ironically in the form of Wheelspins, ie a literal slot machine. However, players can only earn the Lootboxen , not for sale . An essential difference.

And as players in Forza Horizon 5 are also rewarded for almost every action, they also receive new spins regularly. So you get as a user never feeling to buy more Wheelspins. Puller Grind is thus getting away.

While there is a VIP membership , which contains weekly Super Wheelspins, but the VIP status can only buy interested players once. So it is not possible to buy infinitely many Wheelspins.

And this Lootbox mechanics works. Without no hook. What convinces me about it that mechanics are not bad in itself. How should she? It is a natural and deeply human response to look forward to a gift and ask for what is probably the content of the pretty box.

And the principle of random is attractive in this context. The possibility to get a rare object or hot-coveted skin that otherwise has hardly any other player, dissolves in us a certain thrill .

Or otherwise formulated: Lootboxes are fun. Quite simply because they fires our childish curiosity and never get boring the element of surprise.

The problem with the whole thing are not the Lootboxes in itself, but (sometimes again) The greedy publishers , who often force their developers to corrupt the mechanics as far as a disaster as at Star Wars Battlefront 2 arises.

The sadder is true that the system of Forza Horizon 5 and its predecessor unfortunately forms the proverbial exception . Because a large part of all Lootboxes do not target the fun, but still on the bank account of the player.