Valve invents new Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes that successfully dodge anti-gambling regulations
Valve invents new Counter-Strike 2 loot boxes that successfully dodge anti-gambling regulations
Don't hate me for asking a question. I don't endorse loot boxes and do think they suck. But help me understand:
Isn't this better than loot boxes?
You get to see what you're paying for before you pay. You pay more for rarer items that clearly have very high monetary value and you're allowed to sell on items for real money of you want.
Valve also still sticks with a cosmetics only model and no gameplay affecting transactions. Selling cosmetics only is probably the best way to monetise.
You get to see what you're paying for before you pay.
Yes, for the first box. The box after is not shown. So its basically just „hey, if I open this Box, it could very well be that the next box will be a legendary knife”
So you are just betting for what comes after that
Still the point is you don't spend money without knowing what you get so it is better. Still predatory, but better
I think it has an option to decline it too, so you don't have to purchase to move on. I could be wrong about this, but I think this is what I heard.
The new case doesn't have legendaries.
I don't play CS, but...
I dunno, bit better, bit worse, little bit of column a and b. To me this reads like "surprise-fomo-store": congratulations, you found the rarest of things, good job, now fork over this months rent money, you'll probably never get this lucky again!
Sure, you don't need to pay, but same argument applies to lootboxes in general.
The prices of these rarer items are just silly. TBH.
Previously, loot box's gain is a probability distribution over (market price - fixed box price). Now it's (market price - rarity price according to Valve).
I think in the end the market will take the Valve price (fixed or with rarity) into account since it's known and the same to everyone. Then it's again just playing against the probability distribution of items.
Who is buying these skins. I feel like such an alien sometimes. I just can't understand wanting to spend any money at all on a cosmetic skin
I wouldn’t spend money on skins in most games but Counter Strike is different. You can buy a skin, use it for years, and then sell it for more than you paid. In fact, skins are actually a very good investment that have historically had less volatility and better returns than stock indexes like the S&P 500.
These skins have 15% returns? That seems dubious but it could be. I don't think you can sink $300k into skins like you can vanguard, though.
Sure, people will always care for skins and beanie babies. Everyone knows that.
But you can't get your money back out. You only get Steam wallet credit when you sell it, right?
Game developers hire economists and psychologists to run experiments on the precise ways they need to design their games to make people feel like they need skins and other cosmetics and spend money on them. The games are designed to nudge people into associating having good skins with being good at the game and having the default skins with being bad at the game, and to make people want the new skins and feel bad for not having them. Furthermore, they don't really make money on the average person who either doesn't spend money on loot crates or maybe spends a bit of money every now and then- the real money makers are a tiny percentage of players who have some bizarre compulsion to spend absurd amounts of money on this stuff. These are known as "whales" and a lot of them have legitimate psychological issues that cause them to be like this or they're like Saudi nobility who just have absurd amounts of money and don't give a shit about blowing it on fake video game stuff.
To put it into perspective the player model shown when high level players play while have flashier animations which not only look cool but make the player look extremely nimble, it's hard to explain but you just look way better with skins on to a point where players do make weird associations like "karambit is an awp skin"
the reason why in the aforementioned association is because after firing the awp (bolt action sniper) players will draw their knife instead of waiting for the bolt to be reset.
the draw is animated and on the karambit, the draw is exceptionally flashy, since this is frequently done as a legitimate technique (you move faster with knife drawn in cs) then people see the flashy karambit animation very frequently
People who never used fpsbanana or joined a server with a bunch of skins.
I blame league of legends and then dota. Those things pushed matchmaking into cs and then gamer empowerment into obscurity. Even Microsoft's version of Minecraft that they rewrote you have to pay real money for in order to save more worlds. There is a direct correlation between laziness and stupidity, and paying more.
100%.
Make a fun game. If there are skins, include a handful of good ones with the game and call it a day. I'm there to have fun playing a game, not to try on outfits.
Maybe I'm old.
Agreed. The only time I'll buy a skin is if it literally improves camouflage. I see no reason to buy a flashy skin that only serves to make you more visible to enemies.
"Camouflage is the colour of fear."
"What the enemy can see, he will soon learn to fear".
I've spent like 5-10 dollars on csgo skins. Haven't gambled but just spent money directly towards the marketplace to choose the shitty skins I like. Some designs are just really appealing to me
Leave it to Valve to find the most predatory monetization possible.
I think nintendo is so much worse tbh. Mario kart for example they shove the dlc in to kids faces the whole time. Nonono, you can't play these tracks, but you van look at them. Here are all the characters. No not this one, you need your parents magic numbers.
Cases are silly and bad, but at least it's adults who should know better.
Nintendo has a ton of things we can criticize but at the very least the process with them has usually been simple purchases. You pay for what you want to buy and that's what you get.
Tf you talking out your ass fr
Coffeezilla has a series on Valve CS2 market. Watch it
Oh so it’s loot boxes mixed with a limited time store multiplied by FOMO. Very cool.
Not!
Also: “At what point do they become macro transactions?” IMO at $2. That’s the micro/macro cutoff for me.
Stop paying for stupid shit in games or just stop playing these games. Donate to charity instead.
Urg, AAA games suck ass more than ever. Thank christ for offline, AA and indie games!
I think being able to see the item and having the option to purchase is much better than opening a random box that you have no idea what you'll get.
I would never pay for a cosmetic or loot box. but if that's the story of thing someone wants to do, I think this new system is fine
This is pretty disgusting. Just make a normal skin store where people can buy the skins they want at whatever price you(valve) decide they are valued at. No fomo. No gambling.
Isn't that what they did? Except to help preserve the "value" if the rare items you still have to get lucky to be allowed to buy them.
If they had a store where you could buy the ultra rare skins for 1000$, that would push down the "value" if the skins more quickly.
The way they are preserving the value is a form of fomo.
I think it's an improvement though. You never part with your money unless you know exactly what you'll get.
It's basically individualised offers in the form of boxes.
For FTP games that I am really enjoying, I will buy stuff sometimes to support the game.
Predatory as hell. Almost impressive how Valve manages to simultaneously be one of the best and one of the worst companies in gaming.
Best or worst, aim for No. 1!
Just goes to show the dire state the rest of the industry is in.
They shot themselves in the foot in my opinion. I just won’t play video games that have that gambling aspect to them. I already spend enough on trading cards for that thrill
“Best of the worst”.
Best of both Worsts.
It's completely optional. They are about as predatory as gucci bags or other designer shit some people pay way too much for (IMO). You don't need any of it to be competitive or to continue enjoying the game.
I just personally don't have a problem with things that exploit people's vanity.
Let the live service cattle subsidize the best platform for buying non-slop games. Easy math.