Inb4 “sense of accomplishment” I’m not taking about obviously predatory practices here, more of the basic stuff.
So from what I understand, people are against loot boxes, because they are like gambling for children. I argue that gambling isint inheritly bad, and therefore loot boxes aren’t either. The vast majority of people are able to go to a Casio and have a fun night. The vast majority of children can go to chuck E cheese and not become degenerates. Yes some people go overboard with it, but that’s the same with alhocol, weed, food, etc.
I think a teenager pulling a double shift and spending some money on a virtual slot machine to win a virtual knife skin or some shit is perfectly fine. Yes, some will go overboard, but I think most people are okay.
Change my view
Edit: down voting because you disagree with me is going to lead to the same echo chamber we had on reddit. I’m actually trying to have a discussion on this
Children’s brains aren’t adult brains. Some of the dopamine manipulation of casinos is bad, but doing the same thing to kid’s brains is outright evil. It breaks how they develop, and every kid you sell a loot box to should be an extra felony charge of illegal gambling operations filed against the CEO.
Ignoring that, lootboxes are unregulated gambling, which means they can (and do) manipulate your win rates specifically to optimize for addiction, so they’re extremely malicious to adults as well.
Ignoring the gambling stuff, literally all microtransactions fundamentally break the design of games by taking elements designed to reward gameplay and replacing them with mechanics explicitly designed to be unfun and suck money out of you.