Lesser Evil

There's not much good beliefs about lootboxes in general. Yet it's the one of the most popular and proficient way to make earnings for game developers, especially in free to play products.

Lootboxes presence is pretty controvercial thing, so I decided to put in my thougts about this. This is not analyse or research, just a discussion.

Lootboxes has appeared as a monetization medium of Free-to-Play projects, mostly online ones. That's logial: some players not ready to pay monthly for the game. Free-to-Play system offers a player to experience the game freely and pay when player wants to, widening the audience and online of the game, while the lootboxes, “hard” currency and others monetization methods keeps game and company running. Some companies, even the one who makes AAA projects have tendency to put monetization into paid games, what makes players mad: -“What the hell?” -they think, -”I just bought the game, why do I need to pay more?”.

Lootboxes is also a lottery – they always have an element of randomness. It always feels like the next box definitely contains an epic skin you need. That's why many developers uses colorfulness of lootboxes and excitement of players to manipulate them and pump money out of the players' wallets.

As long as MechApocalypse is a Free-to-Play game, there's alsao a monetization system and,of course, lootboxes, but it have seversl differences, and monetization system re going by the path of lesser evil.

Lootboxes will contain currency, cosmetic and non-cosmetic items. Meanwhile lootboxes cannot be purchased, only obtained during single-player missions or online sessions. Lootboxes received by players could be opened in hangar menu freely. Locked lootboxes will appear in game eventually. They will require some time before opening or could be opened immediately with Grants – the “hard” currency, that also can be obtained during single-player missions or online sessions, and also purchased for real-life money. In my honest opinion it's a fine line between gaining money and not pissing off players. In the end, the main purpose of project is to reveal players' creativity, so most creative players will win, not most paying. Am I right or wrong – time only knows. And the feedbacks.