Banning Loot Boxes? Who Knew!

https://www.pcgamer.com

The economic principle I’m exploring is “People generally respond to incentives in predictable ways”

My research question to help me study the economic principle is “ Why are new video games that will soon come out, not include paid loot boxes?”

The article  published in Global Issues in Context titled “Paid Loot Boxes May Not Come Back To 'Star Wars Battlefront 2” demonstrates this economic principle because it shows how the gaming community made the company incentivize  new implements into the game itself.

First, Star Wars Battlefront II is a popular video game. But, it has been known for its loot boxes, and how much it has been frustrating the gaming community. With the second game, so many people complained about the loot boxes. Chris Lee said that, the system in Battlefront is, “a Star Wars-themed online casino.” The problem the loot boxes were such a drastic problem was because within the loot boxes, people got parts from them in order to build heroes and weapons. This was an unfair advantage because people had more benefits in their gameplay than others. Thus, the "loot box game mechanism is designed to exploit the same psychological responses that make slot machines addictive, posing a significant risk to vulnerable consumers.”

Second, Chris Lee commented how he “wants to ban the sales of games with loot boxes to anyone under 21, claiming such systems are designed to prey on the public in the same way as slot machines.” He wanted this to occur because many people under the age of 21 were not mature, and lack of impulse control, bought loot boxes because they wanted certain items. Because of this, the community wanted the sales to not be sold to anyone under aged.

Third, Right before Battlefront II came out, they disabled the loot boxes. Because weeks before, the gaming community kept talking about it saying how the loot boxes were not fair and such. “EA flatly admitted player progression should be tied to player actions exclusively, not the player’s willingness or ability to spend money.” So, here they agreed that the progression of players should be based on gameplay, not on people wanting or being able to spend. But,“This change did not include a large-scale overhaul of the rate at which players earn unlockable content, it just removed the ability to jump ahead by spending money. It only did so temporarily, as EA promised microtransactions would return in the future after the game had been fixed.” They did not fully fix the game, since loot boxes did make a comeback. I think this is wrong because there was so much controversy from players and complaints about the loot boxes. Sure EA did remove them, but there would be a comeback with the loot boxes so they were not gone forever.

In my next blog post I will research:  “Will the legal battle around video game microtransactions actually change video games in the future?”