Blizzard recently announced the newest character to be added to their roster, Moira, earlier this month in BlizzCon. Moira is a support based character that heals allies while used damaging attacks to recharge her healing. Her ultimate is coalescence that is a beam that hurts enemies in front of it while at the same time healing teammates. However, the spotlight was quickly shifted from this interesting character due to the recent controversy over loot boxes in the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront II.
Overwatch loot box
This is not the first time people have complained about Overwatch loot boxes. Until June of this year, the loot boxes in Overwatch would often give duplicate items when opened.
This particularly incensed players who used actual money to buy a seasonal item that would be gone before long. Blizzard heard the outcry from its players and changed how the loot boxes worked. Now, it is much more rare for someone to get a duplicate item, making it easier for people to get their desired skin. However, there is still no definite way for someone to buy the specific skin they want. Players have to take the chance for a loot box and hope that they will get the item they desire. This aspect of loot boxes in Overwatch seemed to not be a big deal, but then Star Wars Battlefront Ii caused some commotion.
Star Wars Battlefront II pay to win
Before recent changes, loot boxes in Battlefront II seemed to be a requirement to be competitive in the game.
Boxes had a chance to drop gameplay enhancing items that could give players advantages over those that could not buy them. Well-known characters such as Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker were barred behind obscenely large credit (an in-game currency) walls. One Reddit user that played the Beta calculated that given the amount of credits he earned in various matches, it would take 40 hours to amass enough to unlock Darth Vader.
This further incentivized players to buy Crystals (another in-game currency) to buy these typically random drops to get these characters faster. Once information such as this became public, there was large outrage over a $60 game possibly being pay-to-win. EA eventually took out microtransactions entirely from the game and seemingly made it easier to attain the popular Star Wars characters.
However, the clamor made brought the attention of legal entities to look into loot boxes in both Battlefront II and Overwatch.
Are loot boxes gambling?
Currently, Belgium's Gaming Commission is looking into both games to see if the loot boxes in them are trying to target gambling towards kids. The people advocating for Overwatch say that since the items that are given are purely cosmetic and have no effect on gameplay, they are not gambling and should not be a part of the argument. For Battlefront, since microtransactions are gone, it is unclear of what the investigations will bring up. Nevertheless, the results could affect both games and any other games that allow real money to be used to buy items.
Do you think that the investigation will hurt Battlefront II or Overwatch? What are your thoughts on microtransactions and loot boxes in general, has a game done it correctly?