The ESA - Entertainment Software Association - is the organisation that represents the games industry in the United States. It's a pretty big deal; its members include top brass from PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and many others. Not only is it responsible for E3 every year, it also tackles broader issues throughout video games, such as loot boxes. A new policy is in the works that will require all games to make clear the probability of attaining virtual items from the randomised crates.
Sony, as well as Microsoft and Nintendo, have agreed to this. Effectively, it means that publishers looking to release games with loot boxes on any of the major console platforms will have to disclose the odds before they're accepted for release. This will apply to new games and updates that add loot boxes to titles that have already launched.
Many publishers have agreed to the terms, including EA, Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and Ubisoft. The changes are due to be implemented by the end of 2020. You can read a little more about all this over on GamesIndustry.biz.
What do you think of this change to loot boxes? Will the probability being visible to players make a big difference? Place your bets in the comments below.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 19
Disclose them where?
If it's via a big red sticker on the front of every box (or a banner across the top of every digital storefront) then great, this might actually make a difference.
If it's via a footnote buried in the "About Us" section of the game's website, or on page 47 of a digital manual nobody ever bothers to read, then what's the point? Nobody's ever gonna find it, not least parents being pressured into buying the latest looter-shooter for their little darlings.
Let's hope it's closer to the former, and that this legislation actually has some teeth for once.
I prefer hidden odds, it protects the children.
Seems like a good step forward if its displayed at the purchase screen. Personally I've never purchased a loot box of any description, but it would be interesting to see in games where you earn them in game what the odds are. I'm not bothered about how others spend their money if they're not game changing.
Han Solo won't like this.
@AdamNovice Thank you! That's really brightened my morning!
I read ESA and started wondering what the European Space Agency had to do with lootboxes... then I read the article
@Rhaoulos Xenomorphs have every right to know the loot box odds as much as the us humans
@AdamNovice That makes perfect sense. The console market will probably reach aliens before China and North Korea.
Does this come with a firm definition for lootbox?
It won't take long before the loopholes are found and exploited.
@RogerRoger For disclosure I imagine it's on the Loot boxes page.
As for Nintendo they could honestly go as far as having it front and center on the eShop page for a game. They already list all in-app purchases above product details like file size so you will see them first, and stick a nice large warning over the purchase button too.
But the obvious one is within the games themselves. Of course, companies can change the odds, so that would need to be looked into.
Good, and also make it that games that has loot boxes is automatically rated M.
can't see how this is going to work well in practice to be honest. how many variables/probabilities is it going to take into account?. suppose you buy a lootbox and are told that it has a 50% probability of containing a legendary item. but what if there are a 100 legendary items which are not all weighted with equal probability?.
Well, it's something at least
@AdamNovice Especially since the odds of getting anything worthwhile from your average loot box are probably far, far worse than 3,720 to 1.
The statistics are gonna be interesting when released, especially since I vaguely recall a developer of some PC MMORPG doing this a couple years back and making headlines for all the wrong reasons, because it turned out that there was something like a one-in-ten-thousand chance of getting the very best item available.
@AdamNovice lmao.
@RogerRoger probably will just say that you have a 100% chance of getting a item.
@ellsworth004 Sad, but likely true.
One tiny step in a huge staircase. But we gotta start somewhere.
But if the industry is good with this then we have to realize that they know this will only have a marginal hit on profits.
Will this only apply to American copies?
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