Star Wars Battlefront 2 - now with lootbox drama

[Santander02]

Yeah how about whoever is getting so triggered by seeing the lootbox thing in other threads just use their mod powers smartly for a change and split merge all related posts into a new thread?

 

[Lahey]

That requires effort.

I'll attempt to make a comprehensive thread divorced of the early EA/game-specific stuff in a few hours unless someone beats me to it.

 

[fantadomat]

Apparently France and Australia jumped on the wagon.

 

[HanoverF]

If something does happen, I wonder where it'll leave stuff like Hearthstone. Magic, Pokemon, and Hearthstone outlawed?

 

[Wilian]

Yeah and Activision owns Blizzard Entertainment department, but guess what, blizzard entertainment does their own thing, still.

Well that's because Blizzard has an actual, legal independence clause that was part of the agreement they made way back when they first joined/sold themselves to a larger conglomerate, cannot remember which but it handled publishing of Warcraft 3 if I remember correctly. Might've been Sierra.

Anyhow, that independce clause has survived each and every merger/being sold situation to this date as it's inherent part of their whole legal mumbo jumbo to even be part of the companies inheriting them.

In simpler terms, if anyone tries to actually enforce something on them, they have legal grounds to go indie, no cost.

 

[Frozen]

This would be best game ewa if you could burn Ewoks with a flamethrower

 

[Cael]

This would be best game ewa if you could burn Ewoks with a flamethrower

Leave the cute carnivorous teddy bears alone! ...before they roast you over a fire and eat your spleen :D

I love how people glossed over the fact that the Ewoks were going to COOK AND EAT the heroes before C3PO got his 15 seconds in the limelight.

 

[DeepOcean]

Someone played this? Is the campaign worth looting?

You play as an edgy independent womin with daddy issues and you shoot brain dead bots with no sense of survival that have stormtrooper aim, on linear corridors and with zero recoil hit scan weapons, what do you think?

 

[Santander02]

That requires effort.

I'll attempt to make a comprehensive thread divorced of the early EA/game-specific stuff in a few hours unless someone beats me to it.

'kay, time to move the discussion to that thread, at this point this game's fate is sealed and whatever happens to it is so unimportant compared to the exposure of predatory microtransactions to the mainstream and the blow to the images, and stocks, of all the game companies that supported this cancer, let the Electronic Autists enjoy their mediocre modern shooter while getting exploited by dice and ea for as long as that will last, they are irrelevant now.

 

[DeepOcean]

I don't recall this furore around the F2P games that have expensive in-app purchases. It's only when greedy publishers ask for $60 to buy the game and then try and bleed you dry afterwards that it gets the pitchforks rising.

And even on the F2P realm, there is a growing tendency of developers focusing on cosmetic and convenience stuff only instead of going straight pay to win, especially when there is a ton of competition with the barrier of entry non existent, most teenagers and kids would quickly jump ship if too inconvenienced, it is that EA's greed just made them too arrogant.

 

[DragoFireheart]

If something does happen, I wonder where it'll leave stuff like Hearthstone. Magic, Pokemon, and Hearthstone outlawed?

Anything that results in a keepable, physical reward like Magic the Gathering will probably be fine. Even if you open a pack with "bad" cards you still get stuff that is partially valuable.

Contrast that with EA loot boxes where it's meaningless shit that you can't keep and might not even get shit.

 

[Cael]

Actually, Magic can constitute gambling, or at least the Booster Packs can be. Sale of individual cards isn't.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Actually, Magic can constitute gambling, or at least the Booster Packs can be. Sale of individual cards isn't.

I could see how someone might argue that the Booster Packs constitute gambling, but the points I made make it less likely to stand up in a court of law.

You always GET something even if the pack contains shit cards. That important distinct helps separate it from gambling. When you are gambling, you could potentially lose and win nothing. You'd think WotC would have been slammed by this years ago if it was a feasible case to make.

Now, video games with virtual goods? Entirely different discussion.

 

[Cael]

BTW, was there anyone in this thread other than Mengsk who would actually have bought Battlefront 2 if it didn't have any microtransactions, or are we just getting butthurt over a game we were never going to play in the first place?

I bought it for my 9 year old. He doesn't really give a shit about progression, he just wanted star wars MP

Just saw this.

I hope you don't have to deal with him crying because other kids are going to waste him with Vader while trash talking him into the ground.

 

[trais]

BTW, was there anyone in this thread other than Mengsk who would actually have bought Battlefront 2 if it didn't have any microtransactions, or are we just getting butthurt over a game we were never going to play in the first place?

I bought it for my 9 year old. He doesn't really give a shit about progression, he just wanted star wars MP

Just saw this.

I hope you don't have to deal with him crying because other kids are going to waste him with Vader while trash talking him into the ground.

That's actually fine, important life lessons are best learned early.

 

[fantadomat]

Actually, Magic can constitute gambling, or at least the Booster Packs can be. Sale of individual cards isn't.

For me,when you don't know what you get for your money is a gamble. If you pay 20 bucks for the best weapon in the game it is ok,the problem comes from loot boxes and all that random shit for your money.

 

[Drakron]

Actually, Magic can constitute gambling, or at least the Booster Packs can be. Sale of individual cards isn't.

Well no because they say the number of cards they contain and their rarity with one slot being a "wildcard" as it can be anything from rare to common.
Plus the focus on this is that the loot boxes are creating a pressure and as Magic cards can be traded, Loot Boxes contents many times are restricted, you just have to gamble for it since you cannot get it any other way..

 

[Cael]

Actually, Magic can constitute gambling, or at least the Booster Packs can be. Sale of individual cards isn't.

Well no because they say the number of cards they contain and their rarity with one slot being a "wildcard" as it can be anything from rare to common.
Plus the focus on this is that the loot boxes are creating a pressure and as Magic cards can be traded, Loot Boxes contents many times are restricted, you just have to gamble for it since you cannot get it any other way..

It is still gambling. Any time that there is a random/chance factor in something you buy, it is gambling.

Trading cards is not gambling, neither is purchasing individual cards, because there is no chance involved.

 

[Luckmann]

If something does happen, I wonder where it'll leave stuff like Hearthstone. Magic, Pokemon, and Hearthstone outlawed?

If we're lucky, yeah. Let all the mtx- and gambling-based shit die in a fire.

 

[Drakron]

It is still gambling. Any time that there is a random/chance factor in something you buy, it is gambling.

Trading cards is not gambling, neither is purchasing individual cards, because there is no chance involved.

There is always a random chance on something you buy,
Point is you can play Magic with a starter deck, you can beat others with a starting deck, rares and other rarity cards arent entirely needed to make a functional deck.

 

[Cael]

Point is you can play Magic with a starter deck, you can beat others with a starting deck, rares and other rarity cards arent entirely needed to make a functional deck.

No. That is not the point. That is so totally out of left field that it is ludicrous.

Either you do not understand what gambling means at all or you are just trolling. No one can be that stupid.

 

[Dexter]

No. That is not the point. That is so totally out of left field that it is ludicrous.

Either you do not understand what gambling means at all or you are just trolling. No one can be that stupid.

Not everything that involves any sort of chance is gambling. You know what you get when you buy a pack of Magic cards, you get a specific amount (like 8, 10 or 15 physical cards) with a specific range of commonality to them: https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Booster_pack#Contents_and_cost

Neither playing cards, nor sticker packs or "Kinder surprise" where you for instance know that you'll get chocolate and a yellow egg with a toy inside is "gambling". Neither of those practices happen while gaming engaging a "Microtransaction fairy" and uses exploitative psychological concepts and models to get players to buy shit to be able to compete in the heat of the moment. They also generally need to do this in a shop, so there's deliberation and active action involved (like people for instance actively have to go to a Casino to gamble too) and it'd be rather hard for a child for instance to buy 1000 booster packs with their parents credit card without their consent and in each case the products are bought because the player wants say the physical cards or stickers inside a pack or the chocolate and toy and on top of that this isn't done in already full-price games.

Also pay attention, who came up with this talking point? It was the ESRB and it was classic deflection, "What our industry is doing is not gambling, it's totally like what this other industry here is doing, why are you looking at us? Why don't you talk about that instead?". And here you are falling for their distraction and talking about that by drawing comparisons that don't really fit. Magic the Gathering is not the issue here, you're in the Star Wars: Battlefront 2 thread.

 

[Lahey]

There's a thread dedicated to the fallout and gambling discussion here.

 

[Cael]

No. That is not the point. That is so totally out of left field that it is ludicrous.

Either you do not understand what gambling means at all or you are just trolling. No one can be that stupid.

Not everything that involves any sort of chance is gambling. You know what you get when you buy a pack of Magic cards, you get a specific amount (like 8, 10 or 15 physical cards) with a specific range of commonality to them: https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Booster_pack#Contents_and_cost

Neither playing cards, nor sticker packs or "Kinder surprise" where you for instance know that you'll get chocolate and a yellow egg with a toy inside is "gambling". Neither of those practices happen while gaming engaging a "Microtransaction fairy" and uses exploitative psychological concepts and models to get players to buy shit to be able to compete in the heat of the moment. They also generally need to do this in a shop, so there's deliberation and active action involved (like people for instance actively have to go to a Casino to gamble too) and it'd be rather hard for a child for instance to buy 1000 booster packs with their parents credit card without their consent and in each case the products are bought because the player wants say the physical cards or stickers inside a pack or the chocolate and toy and on top of that this isn't done in already full-price games.

Also pay attention, who came up with this talking point? It was the ESRB and it was classic deflection, "What our industry is doing is not gambling, it's totally like what this other industry here is doing, why are you looking at us? Why don't you talk about that instead?". And here you are falling for their distraction and talking about that by drawing comparisons that don't really fit. Magic the Gathering is not the issue here, you're in the Star Wars: Battlefront 2 thread.

If it is not gambling, then every rare in Magic would carry the same value. They don't and for good reason. Booster packs are gambling. So is Kinder Surprise to an extent, although people tend to let that slide because Kinder Surprise toys are not worth the plastic it is made of.

 

[Matalarata]

I'm pretty sure to be defined as gambling it must possess some sort of addictive quality but this is quite far from my field so I'll just shitpost:

So is Kinder Surprise to an extent (gambling)

So is this, because you don't know exactly what kind of shitty love phrase you'll find inside!