Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

Leablo.2651:

Related: Japan has banned virtual grab bag collection schemes, though not the grab bags themselves.

It seems like this is something that would have to be addressed by legislation. Corporations are notoriously bad at self-policing and they’re not going to stop a highly profitable activity just because it rubs some people the wrong way.

Actually no. What they banned was the practice of trading in a set of items collected from grab bags for an even “rarer” item.

http://andriasang.com/con12k/complete_gacha_illegal/

That’s what I said…

I think, the german law actually forbids the current practise already.
Gamble is defined in the german law, as something which has an entry price, and has a chance to not win/lose. Since you can actually pay for a key which has a set price, and can get a return < price of the key, you have a net loss.

The german law does not explicity forbid this sort of gambling, but it says, that you have to make the odds available to anyone, for any single winable price.

It is just that currently nobody executes this law.

I guess, if it would, the game would also immediatly become an 18+ titles, instead of the current age restriction of 12+.

Florgknight.1589:

If you made a profit every time you gambled, so many things would go wrong.

You are not making a profit because the items people seek are merely cosmetic.

kokocabana.8153:

Every time you buy a key to open a BL chest, you do get something. It’s called boosters and service items. You are always guaranteed to get these items and that is exactly what you are paying for. These items are worth something even if you do not care about them. Just because you open a chest and consider it empty if it doesn’t have a skin in it doesn’t mean that you were cheated.

While you are right, you receive your gems worth of items typically… you are not considering the fact people DONT care about them and are only after desired item in the chest, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it in the first place… so techincally to that person the chest IS EMPTY. If it was to be fair, put those skins on the TP seperate.

The whole idea of random chests/crates reminds me a whole lot of blind box toys. Here’s a quote about those as a form of gambling; and gambling it is not although it has a similar feel to it. Some of you don’t seem to be able to grasp the difference – or are just so mad that you don’t care to try.

“There is something about the blind assortment that ‘pulls you in’ to try and win the figure you want,” he observes.

Though a similar desire undoubtedly drives conventional gambling, the world of professional gambling is built upon a closed system wherein what’s lost or won is merely undifferentiated capital. The dream of the casual gambler is to win more money than he or she started with (thus enabling him or her to fulfill some other desire), for the addict to earn enough money to continue gambling. Gambling for these reasons makes a certain amount of sense, however much moralists may disapprove. But in the world of blind box toys, what the consumer demonstrates is the desire to pay a premium for the possibility of being dissatisfied, of buying an item he or she does not actually want. The result is not an increased capability to fulfill one’s desire, but the near assurance that one’s desire will not be met. Can we explain this through recourse to a “risk premium”? Is the packaging too new for consumers to have developed appropriate buying practices? Or is consumer behavior in this case simply irrational? Whatever the answer, for now blind boxes are a goldmine for the toy industry."

http://culturalproductionblog.com/?p=112

/agree with op. it feels like they are relying on the “weak” who spend $100s on those chests hoping for their lotto numbers to light up, instead of going for the more “steady” approach of just pricing those “rewards” at reasonable prices.

would they sell more skins than chests if you could buy whatever skin you wanted at a set price? i guess they aren’t willing to find out.

Osi.3504:

kokocabana.8153:

Every time you buy a key to open a BL chest, you do get something. It’s called boosters and service items. You are always guaranteed to get these items and that is exactly what you are paying for. These items are worth something even if you do not care about them. Just because you open a chest and consider it empty if it doesn’t have a skin in it doesn’t mean that you were cheated.

While you are right, you receive your gems worth of items typically… you are not considering the fact people DONT care about them and are only after desired item in the chest, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it in the first place… so techincally to that person the chest IS EMPTY. If it was to be fair, put those skins on the TP seperate.

The boosters and service items are the main purpose of the black lion chests. It’s in the item description. The rare shinies are just a bonus. It’s like when a baby gets a new toy and they ignore it because they are more interested in playing with the cardboard box and bubblewrap than the toy itself.

Another example: I could spend all my money buying fortune cookies until I get the fortune I want. I don’t bother eating the cookies. If I don’t get it then I blame the cookie maker for his RNG. You’d say, “Why would you spend all that money on something worthless?”. Worthless to you but it has value to me and I’ll keep buying them until I get the one I want.

If you think lockboxes are unethical, then vote with your wallet and stop participating what you believe to be unethical actions. Spending money on stuff you don’t want makes no sense, yet from ANet’s perspective lockboxes are selling like hotcakes.

kokocabana.8153:

Osi.3504:

kokocabana.8153:

Every time you buy a key to open a BL chest, you do get something. It’s called boosters and service items. You are always guaranteed to get these items and that is exactly what you are paying for. These items are worth something even if you do not care about them. Just because you open a chest and consider it empty if it doesn’t have a skin in it doesn’t mean that you were cheated.

While you are right, you receive your gems worth of items typically… you are not considering the fact people DONT care about them and are only after desired item in the chest, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it in the first place… so techincally to that person the chest IS EMPTY. If it was to be fair, put those skins on the TP seperate.

The boosters and service items are the main purpose of the black lion chests. It’s in the item description. The rare shinies are just a bonus. It’s like when a baby gets a new toy and they ignore it because they are more interested in playing with the cardboard box and bubblewrap than the toy itself.

Another example: I could spend all my money buying fortune cookies until I get the fortune I want. I don’t bother eating the cookies. If I don’t get it then I blame the cookie maker for his RNG. You’d say, “Why would you spend all that money on something worthless?”. Worthless to you but it has value to me and I’ll keep buying them until I get the one I want.

If you think lockboxes are unethical, then vote with your wallet and stop participating in unethical actions. If you stop buying them, then ANet will offer alternatives.

I’m sorry, but this comparison is so completely off, I had to respond. In your comparison, it’s more like you sell fortune cookies and you say that there’s a rare chance that one of them contains a huge friggin diamond. Or the key to a new ferrari.

This is skinwars. Skins are everything. The very epitome of this game, the “highest” goal for many is, in fact, the acquiring of a skin dubbed “legendary weapon”. Some of the most appealing skins and most wanted items (permanent hair stylist, eternal tonics, permanent contracts) are deliberately put in boxes and chests that require you to gamble. I say “require” because, unless you are dirt-rich in game (which the majority, by definition, is not), you cannot buy enough of these boxes or keys to get your skin ticket. It’s as simple as that. And it’s not like you can save forever for these skins, oh noooooo; these skins are “temporary”. So flip out your credit card, or grind yourself into oblivion. It’s very wrong, and on so many levels. Some of them have been mentioned above; it incites gambling and it preys on weakness.

Buttercup.5871:

kokocabana.8153:

Osi.3504:

kokocabana.8153:

Every time you buy a key to open a BL chest, you do get something. It’s called boosters and service items. You are always guaranteed to get these items and that is exactly what you are paying for. These items are worth something even if you do not care about them. Just because you open a chest and consider it empty if it doesn’t have a skin in it doesn’t mean that you were cheated.

While you are right, you receive your gems worth of items typically… you are not considering the fact people DONT care about them and are only after desired item in the chest, otherwise they wouldn’t buy it in the first place… so techincally to that person the chest IS EMPTY. If it was to be fair, put those skins on the TP seperate.

The boosters and service items are the main purpose of the black lion chests. It’s in the item description. The rare shinies are just a bonus. It’s like when a baby gets a new toy and they ignore it because they are more interested in playing with the cardboard box and bubblewrap than the toy itself.

Another example: I could spend all my money buying fortune cookies until I get the fortune I want. I don’t bother eating the cookies. If I don’t get it then I blame the cookie maker for his RNG. You’d say, “Why would you spend all that money on something worthless?”. Worthless to you but it has value to me and I’ll keep buying them until I get the one I want.

If you think lockboxes are unethical, then vote with your wallet and stop participating in unethical actions. If you stop buying them, then ANet will offer alternatives.

I’m sorry, but this comparison is so completely off, I had to respond. In your comparison, it’s more like you sell fortune cookies and you say that there’s a rare chance that one of them contains a huge friggin diamond. Or the key to a new ferrari.

This is skinwars. Skins are everything. The very epitome of this game, the “highest” goal for many is, in fact, the acquiring of a skin dubbed “legendary weapon”. Some of the most appealing skins and most wanted items (permanent hair stylist, eternal tonics, permanent contracts) are deliberately put in boxes and chests that require you to gamble. I say “require” because, unless you are dirt-rich in game (which the majority, by definition, is not), you cannot buy enough of these boxes or keys to get your skin ticket. It’s as simple as that. And it’s not like you can save forever for these skins, oh noooooo; these skins are “temporary”. So flip out your credit card, or grind yourself into oblivion. It’s very wrong, and on so many levels. Some of them have been mentioned above; it incites gambling and it preys on weakness.

and so because of the weak the rest of us have to suffer? I have ample money and gems to buy the crates if I CHOOSE to , I would hate to see that choice taken away from me just because a the a few that have no self control.

On the other hand I would also hate to see someone blow their grocery or rent on a handfull of gems. Because in actual fact people are purchasing gems, and clearly getiing what they pay for ( done so legally companies have no issues there) its up to the consumer what they use those gems for. Perhaps the solution is to limit the amount of gems one can buy per week, (this may already be in place, I don’t know)

But then yet again that discriminated against those that aren’t inclinded to make silly purchases based on chance.

Lisa.6102:

and so because of the weak the rest of us have to suffer? I have ample money and gems to buy the crates if I CHOOSE to , I would hate to see that choice taken away from me just because a the a few that have no self control.

I don’t understand. So you explicitly want the $1 each crates, which has an extremely low chance of getting a particular skin (that’s being generous, not exaggerating) even if that exact same skin exists for direct purchase at the cost of $10?

I… I… I am perplexed. This is the first time I see what money can do to people

Raestloz.7134:

Lisa.6102:

and so because of the weak the rest of us have to suffer? I have ample money and gems to buy the crates if I CHOOSE to , I would hate to see that choice taken away from me just because a the a few that have no self control.

I don’t understand. So you explicitly want the $1 each crates, which has an extremely low chance of getting a particular skin (that’s being generous, not exaggerating) even if that exact same skin exists for direct purchase at the cost of $10?

I… I… I am perplexed. This is the first time I see what gambling can do to people

I fixed it for you.

$$$$ signs win over ethics, just ask those bankers!!

But I completely agree with the majority of replies in this thread, but what bothers me the most is that there isn’t an attempt to control this, and for the absolute youngest players, this is a dangerous thing as gambling on those boxes can easily become an addiction… and could potentially have an profound affect on their futures… but hey… as I said.. $$$ over Ethics!

I don’t agree with either sentiment – I’ll go with something more radical here using some quick and dirty math.

Lets look at the reward chances (this may not be entirely accurate): weapon tickets are around 1/50, minis are around 1/25, and the old lost shores skins are around 1/8.

Now lets look at prices of items at release (using GW2spidey): Kasmeer was 40g and Faren was 10g (average around 25 gold), the old lost shores skins were around 80s, materials were around 30s, and a predetermined amount of wealth was represented by the tickets.

Going by the numbers – for each of the average 120 gem crates (purchasing economically 10 at a time) you receive: 30s (mats) + 1g (mini) + 10s (old skins) + weapon ticket chance. With gems going for around 2.5g per 100 gems (3g for 120 gems), the weapon ticket is tentatively priced at 1.6g for a 1/50 chance for a total value of 80g or 3200 gems. 3200 gems is NOT a bad price to pay for a desirable skin imho once a quarter.

Now lets assume the value of the weapon tickets remain the same (since their value can’t change with market demand).

Looking at prices of items NOW: with minis going for as low as 25g and 5g (avg 15g), materials going for 20s, and old weapon skins going for 40s. Without the ticket value we end up with 85s worth of items, nearly 50% of the value we got at release.

This is the issue we are facing – in order for the crates to be considered “worth it” by the player base the weapon tickets would need to cover the lost 75s per try and now be priced at 107g. Since the chance to get a weapon ticket remains fixed ultimately the player is short changed 75s for the gems they used to buy the chests.

Now what I see from this is that ANET was not unethical for originally making the crates – they probably priced everything out at release and the value was there. Heck they keep an economist on staff to make sure we get equal reward on gems to gold vs drops from gem derived chests to make sure we still convert gems to gold.

What I see as unethical is the static pricing for the crates when value of their variable items drop in value. The main issue is that when more people play the value to reward will get even lower – but ANET hasn’t done anything about it. If possible I’d advocate for scaling gem prices based on actual TP price for the goods.

Why would they need to scale gem prices based on TP prices? That allows players to control the prices of everything in the gem store. Everyone would just price stuff at the minimum selling price to exploit this. Minimum selling prices are set by ANet in their vendor selling prices. They are set pretty low for all items to allow players the widest range of prices to set. To stop this exploit, they would have to raise vendor selling prices to something a lot higher and would destroy the TP.

You have a good point there – but why would people exploit the gem store by intentionally shafting the prices of commodities on the TP?!

Besides the minimum gem price for the chest would be around 80 gems if that actually happened. I just don’t see people exploiting a multi-hundred gold portion of the TP to lower the price of gem market items by up to 30% while taking a massive 50-90% hit on TP good price just so others can benefit from it. People are too greedy, thus they will never take such a loss unless the tickets projected prices match their loss.

This however is an interesting assertion that a variable gem store price which creates items which can be sold on the TP will make prices lower. Maybe this is something I am willing to accept. Can’t wait until unid dye is 50c