Should we boycott games with loot boxes?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨gandolfini_the_grey@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

I have been avoiding multiplayer Valve games like Counter-Strike 2 and Team Fortress 2, due to their in-game economies that have created an underage gambling gray market, which Valve has done little about. However, I am on Linux, and the choices for multiplayer shooters are few. Besides, my small boycott is not stopping Counter-Strike 2 from being the most played steam game. Are boycotts really the best solution to stop this epidemic in gaming? How can we best prevent these gambling grey markets and the gaming to gambling addiction pipeline?

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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Already do.

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- ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I started my protest a decade ago.
  
  While you can argue that nothing happened and we still have loot boxes, I’d argue that my life is greatly enriched for not feeling any motivation to play in those looty skinner box games.
  
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ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
You should not put your time or money into anything doing something that you don’t like in the marketplace, because that’s the only way it changes.

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- gandolfini_the_grey@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  This is a very smart and thoughtful perspective. One should consider their time and money as valuable, and not put it in games they disagree with. Do you have any good alternatives to recommend for the most popular Valve FPSs?
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    You might not like my answer, but I haven’t really played new FPS games in years, because basically none of them are doing what I want. I’m well served in basically every other genre right now, but these things are cyclical. We’re just getting through the era of indie FPS games inspired by Doom/Quake and other more maze-like shooters, and we may soon be entering the era where FPS games are inspired by my favorites. My multiplayer these days is usually fighting games, and the only ones that will give you trouble on Linux are Dragon Ball FighterZ and the upcoming 2XKO, both due to anti cheat.
    
    As an aside, I’ll also say that where you put your time shouldn’t matter, if the product is free, for instance, but it does matter in online video games. Your presence in matchmaking is adding value for someone else who might spend money in the game, so you’d still be helping the causes of CS2 and TF2 just by playing on the official servers. For TF2, I think the code just went open source and there’s a revitalization project to bring it back to what it was like at launch? If so, that might be pre-loot-box, and playing that version of the game would help send the message you want to send. The same might apply to old versions of Counter-Strike.
    
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  - Taco2112@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I like a FPS but I have the most fun with the PVE sub genre of FPS. Left 4 Dead 2 and Deep Rock Galactic being my two favorites. Playing against other humans can be annoying if the skill balance isn’t right and if they’re cheating then it makes it no fun, imo.
    
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  - Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I haven’t been into FPS for several years, but if I was going to play anything current, I’d give The Forever Winter a look. It’s still being worked on, but the early access gameplay is really cool looking, and it’s bringing a lot of ideas to the table creatively.
    
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surph_ninja@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Many of us have been doing this from the beginning, but it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how gacha games work.

Most people do not pump loads of money into these. Many don’t pay anything at all. But those people are not the audience. These companies are going after the whales. Basically gambling addicts who will destroy their entire lives to pump everything they have into it.

Which is exactly why these games either need to be illegal, or the law needs to put caps on how much individuals are permitted to spend on these.

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- HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Don’t get me started on magic the gathering
  
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  - Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Ohhhhhhhhhh boy
    
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TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Just play “Team Fortress 2 Classic” or “Open Fortress” both are really cool community projects without crates, or any micro transactions as far as I know.

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- gandolfini_the_grey@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Those projects look great! I will have to check both those out. My problem with a lot of community FPS games is that the community is just too small to play regularly (like Xonotic, for instance).
  
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  - TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yea, thats where you’ll find some issues sadly. I’m not a regular but I manage to find one or two servers with a decent player count most of the time.
    
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rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve bought singleplayer games with loot boxes and no anticheat and just used cheat engine to get the ingame currency for them. I think I’m doing my part.

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- natryamar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  WTF there are singleplayer games with lootboxes?!?!?
  
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  - rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Some assassin’s creeds.
    
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  - nyctre@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Borderlands
    
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- mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  The Gatcha system is why I never finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The first game was phenomenal… But the second game required a gatcha system to unlock new party members. There were even quests that were locked behind certain ultra-rare party members.
  
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- kcweller@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  You’re not though, you are still buying those games. Go the extra mile and pirate them if you really feel the need to play games containing loot box mechanics while trying to “stick it to them”
  
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  - rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    empress is dead
    
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SplashJackson@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve been boycotting them for years yet we all can see how that turned out

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- kazerniel@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeah the problem with boycotts and “vote with your wallet” is that one whale can offset the boycott of thousands of low-spending players 😐
  
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kazerniel@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Are boycotts really the best solution to stop this epidemic in gaming?

Boycotts very very rarely work. I’ve never heard of a single successful video game boycott.

How can we best prevent these gambling grey markets and the gaming to gambling addiction pipeline?

Lobby for appropriate legislation with your government representatives. We could have legislation that forces companies to transparently show the chance of specific rewards, and even show the money you have to spend on average to get XY specific item. (I think there is already a law like this in the works in the EU?)

One of the major psychological tricks gambling games (including lootbox and gacha) employ is to obscure the true costs behind premium currencies. Once they are forced to remove this, and you are shown that yes, guaranteed acquisition of a single Genshin character will cost you ~300 USD, it might make you do a double-take before you pull out your bank card. (There are many more psychological dark patterns these developers employ, so it wouldn’t be a single miracle solution, unless of course legislation altogether bans random chance rewards buyable with cash.)

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madjo@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Don’t pre-order and don’t buy games that have loot boxes or other in-app purchases.

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Raiderkev@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I already do, but I’m also not as avid a gamer as I once was. Every FPS became borderline unplayable when loot crates became a thing. Call me old fashioned, but I liked when games had the same weapons for everyone, and there weren’t random cards or whatever that made people’s guns more powerful / reload /shoot faster, etc. It really brings an imbalance to the game, and enables these stupid gambling sites. The companies making the games are making money hand over fist, so they aren’t going to stop any time soon barring regulation, and looking at this administration, good fucking luck with that. Boycott away.

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60d@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Already boycott lootboxes and gacha games.

Sell me the game and give free updates or fuck off. I’m done paying you to be your beta tester.

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CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If you are not their target audience then you can‘t really boycott them in the first place. And in my opinion there is no harm in playing a game with loot boxes when you don‘t buy them. They aren’t really getting anything out if free players. That’s not how their servers keep running. And most f2p games that I encounter nowadays do season passes without the random factor anyway, so I feel the loot boxes discussion is becoming a little outdated for the main stream. Thank goodness.

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Jaysyn@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve never bought one & have no plans to.

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pory@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Just not buying something isn’t a boycott. Don’t buy bad games, and it’s a good idea to include dark patterns in the criteria for what makes a game bad.

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JakobFel@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
No, if anything, we need to boycott games with battle passes. I’m not a fan of lootboxes but I’d take them any day over a battle pass. Don’t pressure me to play specific ways, don’t exploit FOMO to try to get me to grind or spend money. I find that a LOT more predatory than lootboxes, at least in games where they’re optional.

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- natryamar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Dont you also have to grind for lootboxes?
  
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  - JakobFel@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Not in every game. Some games make it reasonably fair, such as Elder Scrolls Online which makes it possible to obtain the lootbox items in other ways.
    
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Infynis@midwest.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Maybe I’m just an old man now, but it’s been years since I was interested in a game with lootboxes. I think the last one I played was Overwatch, back when it originally came out

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ILaughBecauseFunny@feddit.dk ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
One of the reasons why Valheim is one of my favorite games these days… You buy it and then you play it… No loot boxes, no in game shop, Doesn’t force you to be online and a minimal amount of RNG at all… But the grind is real though…

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Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Do I have to start playing games with loot boxes before I can start boycotting them?

The only one I’ve ever played was overwatch, but overwatch 2 is garbage, so…

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- MellowYellow13@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Sad what happened to that game. Same, OG Overwatch was freaking awesome, OW2 is complete garbage.
  
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  - FunkFactory@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Almost everything about OW1 is now back in OW2! 6v6 is back, loot boxes are back. You can even play the OW1 metas if you want, though they pretty much only show just how much better the game has gotten over the years.
    
    I’ve been playing OW1 since launch and have really liked OW2, my only complaint was that they were making playable heroes unlockable, but that was fixed a long time ago.
    
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Telorand@reddthat.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Are boycotts really the best solution to stop this epidemic in gaming?

Yes, but not if you don’t convince others to join you.

How can we best prevent these gambling grey markets and the gaming to gambling addiction pipeline?

Educate people on the dangers. Show them why it’s gambling, because there’s a lot of apologetics out there to trick people into thinking it’s not. Point out the same slot-machine-tactics they use to get people hooked.

And then convince them to boycott. The CEOs that put this shit in games know how to read sales numbers, and if sales start dropping (or player counts), they’ll soon figure out that it’s because of their lootbox/gacha systems.

Lastly, give people alternatives. I usually point people to Deep Rock Galactic, but there may be others that are better suited to people’s tastes. “Just leave” isn’t really effective if they don’t know where to go.

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- gandolfini_the_grey@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Thank you for your thoughtful response. Deep Rock Galactic looks amazing!
  
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  - Telorand@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    It’s a blast! The devs listen to and are involved in the community, you can go back and play earlier season content at your discretion, and all the paid content is optional cosmetics that exist primarily as an additional revenue stream for the devs, so no pay to win or praying to RNGesus to get that one ultra rare drop everyone needs.
    
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NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It is important to question what you think a boycott will do.

Do you think you are going to make a giant movement that changes the world? If so… you should stop eating those lead paint chips. Consumers, historically, will only engage in a boycott if there are alternatives. Shop at Walmart instead of Target. VERY short term you might get someone to boycott Amazon for a few days but… just check “leftist” forums like resetera for everyone immediately losing their shit over how a few older activision games they will never play are on sale.

Video games, contrary to what people will say, don’t really have alternatives. We’ll joke that The Last Descendent was “waifu frame” but the people who love Warframe very much have reasons for not wanting to play TLD and vice versa. Let alone games like Call of Duty where there really is nothing close to an alternative.

So “boycott to fix the world” (and I am gonna expand on what THAT would be shortly…) ain’t a thing.

So… now it is up to why? Personally, I “boycott” Ubisoft and have for the better part of a decade at this point. I think the last game I bought “from them” was GR Breakpoint and I got that years after the game was basically dead and on a hefty discount (see: lack of alternatives). I am under no illusion that my wallet is going to lead to yves et al leaving their own company out of shame for their role in enabling a culture of sexual harassment (and allegedly more). But I do know that I feel a lot better when I look at myself in the mirror and most games I am interested in DO have alternatives.

So do you think you are going to change the world? Cue Nelson Muntz. Do you just not want to contribute to the culture of loot boxes personally? Go for it. And it doesn’t matter what people on not-reddit tell you.

As for what you think will happen: I think we can all agree that Nintendo upping the… Err, let me rephrase that. I think we can all agree that any company other than Nintendo upping the base price of a game to 80 USD (pre-tariffs…) is REALLY bad for the industry. But… inflation IS a thing and while game sales have skyrocketed… game dev has too. Money has to come from somewhere. And RMTs (lootboxes, cosmetics, etc) and constant flows of DLC have actually been great for the industry. It, for two decades or so, stopped the endless “ramp up, ramp down” model where people would be hired to work on a game, fired when it went gold, and then hired again 6 months down the line if it got green lit for an expansion. Get rid of RMTs and we go back to that for all but the largest studios because you don’t need artists when you are fixing a bug in Batman’s cape and so forth.

So, personally? I buy and play games that I like. And a lot of that does have to do with the monetization model. Something like Warframe is RMT based and has some sketchy purchases but also is (mostly) playable as a free game and is built around “free” content. Whereas something like Genshin Impact is marketed as “you never have to spend a dime” but… yeah. So the games that “do it wrong”? I am… kind of already “boycotting” them because I am just not interested in them.

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- CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Counterpoint - you can boycott whoever you want for as long as you want whether the world is getting saved or not. Try not to give a shit what other people are doing. You don’t have to change the world. You just have to stick to your own principles. And if enough people do that, the world will change anyway. But all you can control is your own actions.
  
  I have a long list of boycotted companies that I have never gone back on. Started with Blackjack Pizza in college when they wouldn’t refund a pizza that had oven cleaner all over the bottom of it. Facebook gone for 15 years now, and I go without the cool Quest VR stuff. Walmart kicked to the curb around the same time for their gross abuse of their employees. Amazon ditched 3 years ago, don’t miss it. I’d love to have Starlink to put on a vehicle when I travel the country, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before Muskrat gets a dollar out of me. Canceled all my Target shit (20 year card member) a couple months ago over their DEI bullshit and won’t set foot in one again. I shop at Costco as a single adult. The list goes on.
  
  And while I wish other people would give these companies the finger so real change would happen, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I am sticking by what I believe.
  
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FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Video game boycotts are an absolute fucking joke. Especially if organized here. I mean what % of consumers are on Lemmy? Like 0.00000000000000001%? For fuck sake.

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- rustydrd@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Come on, it’s gotta be at least 10^-7^.
  
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  - FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    At most, tea. I just didn’t wanna make 8 paragraphs of zeros lol.
    
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GreyCat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
While I agree with moat answers, I don’t think that the few of us boycotting such popular games will harm or affecg them at all. We are a very small minority.

However, I do think we can support a sustainable niche market of good and sensible games.

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- moody@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  More important than who you choose not to give your money to is who you do choose to give it to.
  
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inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yes but loot boxes is gambling and is an addiction and gaming companies know this and exploit this.

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whotookkarl@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Do what you think is right, but spend some time to consider whether you want to reward someone or some organization with your hard earned money if you consider what they are doing immoral or bad.

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Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yes. And you should boycott Steam because they practically invented gambling for underage. Watch the coffee-something video about it.

Now, 3,2,1 watch all the so-called gamers rip their shirt to defend to defend this evil soulless capitalist business because “they offer a good service and care about gaming blablabla ubisoft bad blablabla”.

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- zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Fut existed for a couple years before TF2 added loot crates, which was 3 years before CS added them
  
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  - Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I dont know what Fut is and I don’t really care. Steam is the most profitable business in the US, they shouldn’t get kids addicted to gambling is my point, nor should any other game.
    
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- gandolfini_the_grey@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Do you prefer GoG?
  
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  - Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yes.
    
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ZeroHora@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Are boycotts really the best solution to stop this epidemic in gaming? How can we best prevent these gambling grey markets and the gaming to gambling addiction pipeline?

No, boycotts do fucking nothing. The only thing that could make a difference is regulations to properly label these type of thing as gambling and even that is not very likely to succeed. They make a lot of money with gambling.

Should we boycott games with loot boxes?

Do if you want to do it.

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sith@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yes.

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Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I think your voice could actually be better than your wallet on this.

For one, these games are free. So, are you harming the world by playing them and just not buying loot boxes? Minimally, at best. I also advise people enacting boycotts to represent vocal action around them. For instance, I called Target directly about my boycott when they ended DEI hiring.

You can also help lobby politicians to make clear how you feel on the issue. That can put a lot more panic on publishers. Politicians don’t have a strong reason to defend them - often it only gets ignored because they don’t think voters find it a significant issue. Even if you don’t get a federal ban, sometimes you can get state laws like limiting physical advertising; which can also sometimes spread to other states.

Basically, boycotting as a form of inaction, especially when it makes your days boring, isn’t necessarily an effective approach.

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null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I pretty much can’t play anything any more because I refuse to play anything with loot boxes or timers or in-game currency.

There are very few games on Android you can just buy and play casually to relax for a few hours.

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- vxx@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Stardew Valley
  
  Balatro
  
  Slay The Spire
  
  Lichess
  
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  - overload@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Final fantasy tactics is decent on android too
    
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- kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  As for android games… If you like puzzles like sudoku, check out Simon Tatham’s Puzzle collection. Simple ad-free online experience with a varied collection of puzzle games.
  
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Sunsofold@lemmings.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
If the loot boxes affect your ability to win, don’t buy the game. If they are just cosmetic, meh.

But don’t stop there. If it has day one DLC, don’t touch it. If it has DLC to patch game functions that should be in the base game, don’t touch it. If it has any kind of pay to win function, don’t touch it. If it has a subscription, don’t touch it. If it’s a pre-order, don’t touch it. If it’s put out by a conglomerate publisher that eats real developers and shits out imitations of their IP, don’t touch it.

And most of all, teach these things to gamer kids and their parents. Kids are ignorant of the effect their purchases, and parents don’t have the time and energy to go learn for themselves. Spreading awareness helps everyone.

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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
No, we should see that they are made illegal.

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