Why do people compare Lootboxes to things like Trading card packs

[kilenem]

Loot boxes contain items with that are digital license that the game maker has control of. Anything that you buy at random in real life that is a physical good is something you can trade, sell or keep forever. Unless its food.

 

[Aerosteam]

Because both are randomised on purchase and different rewards have different values. I don't agree with the comparison but that's what I've heard.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Because both are randomised on purchase and different rewards have different values. I don't agree with the comparison but that's what I've heard.

And in some cases you can also trade or sell or keep the items forever, as in the case of TF2 (and those are the cases were the "gambling" label is the most valid as your items actually have a real world value).

So some loot box schemes are actually EXACTLY like trading card packs. Except the bullies can't come to your lunch table and rip your cards up.

 

[Lufia Erim]

if only lootbox contents were tradable for real money.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

if only lootbox contents were tradable for real money.

Sometimes they are, like in the case of TF2 or CS:GO where you can literally buy lootbox items from other people.

Hell if you don't want the lootboxes you earn you can sell those as well, don't even have to open them.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

The only direct correlation is that they both have random contents, which vary in value. The idea is that they create a gambling-like mentality, where you keep buying packs/boxes in order to get that one item you want, either because of it's rarity or value, or how much you just like it, or to complete a set.

I also think this is a pretty narrow way to look at it, because then even hacking minions in most hack n' slash RPG gives you the same result. But the investment of real world money is where the line gets drawn.

 

[Kyrian007]

Where I equate the two is the possibility of no return for investment, or as the publishers would put it "unlimited profits." If you kept buying crates or booster packs to get an item or card to fill out a set... in either scenario there is a chance you could spend all the money you have and never get that item or card. It is the random element that makes them the same. It only becomes different when you can chose to buy the exact single item you want. When you only buy a chance to get that thing... Then its a lootbox or booster pack or something equally as scummy to sell. Adding gambling elements like random chance is only OK if A: there is no monetary cost involved (Borderlands style lootboxes, earned by playing and farming, and opening them) or if it is for a non-profitable charity benefit (nothing wrong with the old fashioned raffle drawing to fix the town clock tower.)

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

it's a typical simplification that humans tend to regularly cock up by not thinking it through thoroughly. By Christ there's enough of those on the splinterwebs to keep you agitating all the way to the inevitable seduction
of the ever-calling death bed. The most important difference is that you can fucking burn the trading cards to the ground in fit of buyer's remorse if necessary, destroying all evidence of your shameful behavior

Veiled algorithms are some suspicious bullshit too

 

[sXeth]

Where I equate the two is the possibility of no return for investment, or as the publishers would put it "unlimited profits." If you kept buying crates or booster packs to get an item or card to fill out a set... in either scenario there is a chance you could spend all the money you have and never get that item or card. It is the random element that makes them the same. It only becomes different when you can chose to buy the exact single item you want.

Though while thats true of a theoretical closed system where the only source of trading cards is the supplier. Their existence as free market goods post-unpacking ends up such that you can essentially go buy the specific card. Whereas you can't go buy whatever digital content from some guy at the comic book shop or on ebay or what have you (with few exceptions, and most of those get even shadier then the lootbox stuff was to begin with).



As to why people compare them, the basic concept is the same (with many lootbox models literally using card packs as their branding). Trading card companies probably would love to have the setup where people couldn't trade (along with record companies, book publishers, and hell, video game publishers trying to find a way around the used market), but they haven't managed to warp copyright law or some other nonsense enough to be able to enforce that idea on physical media yet.

 

[Jadak]

Tangible items that you can trade is nice in concept, but it hardly excludes the concept that what you're getting is sometimes just random garbage you'd not have bought if sold directly.

 

[kilenem]

Because both are randomised on purchase and different rewards have different values. I don't agree with the comparison but that's what I've heard.

And in some cases you can also trade or sell or keep the items forever, as in the case of TF2 (and those are the cases were the "gambling" label is the most valid as your items actually have a real world value).

So some loot box schemes are actually EXACTLY like trading card packs. Except the bullies can't come to your lunch table and rip your cards up.

Valve gets a cut of the things you sell though. You can sell trading cards with out a third party involvement.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Because both are randomised on purchase and different rewards have different values. I don't agree with the comparison but that's what I've heard.

And in some cases you can also trade or sell or keep the items forever, as in the case of TF2 (and those are the cases were the "gambling" label is the most valid as your items actually have a real world value).

So some loot box schemes are actually EXACTLY like trading card packs. Except the bullies can't come to your lunch table and rip your cards up.

Valve gets a cut of the things you sell though. You can sell trading cards with out a third party involvement.

Technically you don't have to sell anything through Steam. You could offer to sell your TF2 items to someone, they give you cash for them, then you friend them on steam and "give" the items to them, thus cutting Valve out of the deal.

Valve gets a cut of the profits because they provide a safe space to sell the items where you're less likely to get ripped off, but you don't have to sell directly through steam.