> Personally, I'm rather happy to see this action being taken; loot boxes are a predatory and frequently deceptive business model.
Are they? In Overwatch you only get cosmetic items, and you cannot trade them (so it's hard to argue they have financial value). In addition, when you would get a duplicate item you get in-game coins instead, and those coins can also be exchanged for cosmetic items.
Personally I think the mandatory animation when you open a lootbox takes too long so I've simply stopped opening them a while ago. I think I now have 20 unopened lootboxes?
Compare with Steam, where you could (can?) get "free" loot boxes, but you'd have to buy a key with real money to open them, and then the contents were random (but tradable with other players, for money). Now there's a company that is clearly begging to get banned by anti-gambling laws.
While I agree that, on the whole, Overwatch's model (cosmetic only, non-tradeable) is less negative than those in which there is a secondary market, I'm still not a fan of including unregulated gambling-like mechanics in games with a demographic of primarily teenagers. However, this is entirely my view on underage gambling at work.
From a less personal perspective, Valve's products are much more blatantly akin to gambling; I see very little reason not to apply the same regulations to Dota or CS:GO loot boxes as would apply to any online casino.
Are they? In Overwatch you only get cosmetic items, and you cannot trade them (so it's hard to argue they have financial value). In addition, when you would get a duplicate item you get in-game coins instead, and those coins can also be exchanged for cosmetic items.
Personally I think the mandatory animation when you open a lootbox takes too long so I've simply stopped opening them a while ago. I think I now have 20 unopened lootboxes?
Compare with Steam, where you could (can?) get "free" loot boxes, but you'd have to buy a key with real money to open them, and then the contents were random (but tradable with other players, for money). Now there's a company that is clearly begging to get banned by anti-gambling laws.