Ubisoft: "If Players Didn't Buy Loot Boxes/Crates, They Would Not Be Added"

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Proving that the adage of “vote with your wallet” is alive and well, Ubi_Warlock, a support team member for Trials Rising, sent a blunt message to Steam players complaining about the motorcycle racer’s cosmetic loot boxes: don’t like them? Stop buying them. While gamers are quick to criticize loot boxes at a moment’s notice, their spending habits often seem at odds with the controversy.

Ubisoft’s support went as honest as it could get, revealing that the loot boxes are so profitable for the company that it makes no sense – business-wise – to not include them in its games. “Yes, it means that some players end up spending more on our games than others and that does result in increased profits for us. It also helps us to put more money into new titles and to understand what players look for in their games. If players simply didn’t buy these crates, they would not be added into games in future.”
 
How many friends of mine swore black and blue they wouldn't buy FO76, and guess what? Launch rolls around, someone says 'i'm board of our current lan games (Ark, Overwatch, and some classics like MechWarrior 4) let's get FO76' and they did. Goddamn sheep.
 
I mean, how can you really argue with their point? I've never bought a lootbox, and I don't personally like them. But I can't fault them for including them if people buy them. The idea is to make money.
 
If it's only cosmetics, I could give a fuck about lootboxes.

Used to be in multiplayer, everything was available for everyone; no progression, grinding or other BS.

Then, it became an ordeal to get to where the game was playable. Doom was this way; I refuse to grind to get normal hit probabilities, so I play Arcade mode, that doesn't use that hit mechanism.

You could pay more money for the game to be what you thought you bought, but you didn't know that going into it.

I'm sure he's all good with raping players wallets, that's how they get their bonuses.

What the Fuck happened to the people on the leaderboard were actually good, and did't pay $500+ to get there?

That's when I quit preordering games, and Pay to win meant more money in my pocket, because I sure as fuck wasn't spending it on games.

I bought a Eaton M112 blower for a year's worth of games, lol.

I bought Crysis 1,2 and 3 and the other fun stuff in between, but the later far cry games are a torturous experience, and I work as hard as possible to fuck over the "normal" outcomes as possible.

I killed all the leaders in FC4, it made the game much better. :) and I bought it on sale for $20.

I'm waiting for FC5 to hit $20, and I'll rape it too.

If gamespy were still up, none of the new games would sell at all.

Fuck ubisoft, I hope they get raped to death by one of their faggy characters.
 
Unless loot boxes are necessary to progress in the game, or offer some kind of competitive advantage, I don't see what the problem is.

Along with that point, I just played through AC: Odyssey, and I didn't even realize there was a "store" for in game items until I had almost finished the game. Nothing in the game required you to buy something to successfully complete it.
 
So long as it is strictly cosmetic and doesn't impact gameplay, I'm a huge fan of things that make idiots waste money. There are few things more satisfying than stomping a hole in the ass of some clown running around with hundreds of thousands spent on their character and zero skill.
 
Eventually, the bubble is going to burst on this shit and these companies will have no respect left from their consumer base in the aftermath.
 
... There are few things more satisfying than stomping a hole in the ass of some clown running around with hundreds of thousands spent on their character and zero skill.

The problem is that you can empty a clip into his head from 3 feet away, and he will take No Damage.

That's why I quit playing these games, there's no skill involved, it's how much you've grinded or paid.

Fuck that.
 
Proving that the adage of “vote with your wallet” is alive and well, Ubi_Warlock, a support team member for Trials Rising, sent a blunt message to Steam players complaining about the motorcycle racer’s cosmetic loot boxes: don’t like them? Stop buying them. While gamers are quick to criticize loot boxes at a moment’s notice, their spending habits often seem at odds with the controversy.

Ubisoft’s support went as honest as it could get, revealing that the loot boxes are so profitable for the company that it makes no sense – business-wise – to not include them in its games. “Yes, it means that some players end up spending more on our games than others and that does result in increased profits for us. It also helps us to put more money into new titles and to understand what players look for in their games. If players simply didn’t buy these crates, they would not be added into games in future.”

A minority of whale players buy lootboxes until the cows come home. Majority of players don't like them or buy them. The lootboxes make a lot of money from the whales. Thus, lootboxes stay.

Pretty much this. A majority of players are outraged. A small subset of players will spend ludicrous amounts of money on it. To be fair, the majority of the outrage is in paid games where lootboxes are necessary to unlock all playable content rather than just cosmetics.
 
Gambling exploits several human weaknesses making it an easy way to separate people from their money, which is why the mob built an opulent city like Vegas out in the middle of a desert. So yeah, loot boxes are going to sell.

Of course I think the bean counters often do a poor job of figuring the impact because it's much easier to quantify loot box sales than lost game sales due to it having them. Only when a game completely flops do they seem to take that into consideration, even then there has been several games where loot boxes were removed which would only happen if the publisher decided they were losing money by having them.
 
This is why I simply play with cheats turned on via a site that is tailored to make cheats.

All of those loot boxes.. for me... free... 100% because you can buy them with in game gold that I could just give myself 100k of with the press of a button. So screw you ubisoft, I game on a PC for a reason.
 
So how are the sales of Assassin's Creed Odyssey after Red Dead Redemption 2 was released, and it turns out the DRM of the game on PC is already cracked as well? I doubt that game did well, especially the reaction from the community of the micro-transactions.
 
Loot boxes at least have a purpose on emptying moron's wallets. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of people pay thousands of dollars for pictures of space ships in Star Citizen.
 
So how are the sales of Assassin's Creed Odyssey after Red Dead Redemption 2 was released, and it turns out the DRM of the game on PC is already cracked as well? I doubt that game did well, especially the reaction from the community of the micro-transactions.

The reaction of the community regarding micro-transactions is that its a nothing-burger. The micro-transactions in the game are basically 100% optional, you dont need any of it to complete the game at all, and the time to complete without it is perfectly fine. Through its too early to tell, I think the game did do well.
 
I mean, how can you really argue with their point? I've never bought a lootbox, and I don't personally like them. But I can't fault them for including them if people buy them. The idea is to make money.
Whose idea? Yours? Is that why you buy their games, to give them money?

This sort of thinking drives up up the wall. The way of thinking that this is all about money. About business. It is not. That might be why the people in charge of Ubisoft have someone make the game: for them to make money selling it. But that IS NOT why I buy a game, and I doubt that many of those in charge of making games do it for that reason, either. Do artists create art to make money, or do they make money because people appreciate their artistry? Do artists take pride in their skill? Do coders, masters of game mechanics, voice actors, and all of the people who put forth their efforts in creating a game do it solely to get paid? I don't think so, though I expect some do.

So, to get back on topic, I *can* argue their point. I can argue their point as a gamer, since I am *not* a share-holder for Ubisoft or anyone else. I am paying money because I want a good game, not because I want to be a means of income for some corporate executive or shareholder. Things, for example, that break immersion, screw up the flow of the game, or otherwise decrease my enjoyment of what I'm doing... yes, I can argue against their point. I can fault them for including something whose sole purpose seems to be to make them more money, not improve the quality of the game I've purchased. In fact, I think I just did.
 
My principle issue is that loot boxes (traditional RANDOM loot boxes) are working because they ARE a form of gambling.

I ask another more pointed question:

If you offer the exact same items and customized skins and whatever and you make ALL of it classic micro transactions where you can choose your item and buy it specifically, for the same $1 for each item as the loot boxes cost, how many people STILL would buy that item they want? We know what the answer is and so do these damn companies that offer loot boxes. If just selling the items for $1 each was just as profitable as playing the whole random lottery thing they'd DO that because the randomizing is just another layer of work they have to do.

So... why are people spending MORE money on loot boxes than on just straight up sold items?

"ONE MORE SPIN BABY! I'LL GET THAT SKIN I WANT NEXT TIME FOR SURE! YEAH!"

That is the ONLY reason it works. It's GAMBLING (and you pay real money to do it) and it provides all the same rush and addiction as pulling the handle at a casino.

I have NO CLUE AT ALL why it's legal to do this when all other forms of gambling are both highly regulated and limited to adults only. And I could just franly ignore the hell out of all of it but these games are ALL played by as many MINORS as adults of gambling age and that just pisses me off!

Whether or not the minor is given any money or allowed by a parent or guardian to spend money on the loot boxes they are being bombarded by what ARE gambling ads in game constantly. "Buy keys now! Open a crate?"

It's sick.
 
The reaction of the community regarding micro-transactions is that its a nothing-burger.
Nothing-burger? Does it come with something-cheese?

The micro-transactions in the game are basically 100% optional, you dont need any of it to complete the game at all, and the time to complete without it is perfectly fine. Through its too early to tell, I think the game did do well.
100% optional, but the game requires 500% more time to go do side quests. But for the low price of your parents wallet, you can get an XP booster to skip the games content quicker. Also you can buy gear from the store.

I would never play the game cause HAHAHA micro-transaction induced grinds are not fun, but I hear people used a cheat to basically get everything off the store for nothing. After all, the micro-transactions are 100% optional... to pay that is HAHA.

But no seriously the game has been given a horrible MetaCritic user score from the community.
 
Nothing-burger? Doesn't it come with something-cheese?


100% optional, but the game requires 500% more time to go do side quests. But for the low price of your parents wallet, you can get an XP booster to skip the games content quicker. Also you can buy gear from the store.

I would never play the game cause HAHAHA micro-transaction induced grinds are not fun, but I hear people used a cheat to basically get everything off the store for nothing. After all, the micro-transactions are 100% optional... to pay that is HAHA.

But no seriously the game has been given a horrible MetaCritic user score from the community.

I think this is entirely overblown, I am 60% complete odessey, haven't paid a dime, had a blast and no mirco transactions. I haven't touched the bounty board because it's boring, all I have done is main and side quests marked with a ! And the ? On the map, most of which are linked to a quest anyway. Been playing on nightmare too, if I dropped to normal I wouldn't need to do half the things I've done, but stalking and killing a fort, or playing cat and cat with a group of bounty hunters is fun.

Micro transaction suck, but so far no Ubi game has needed them to complete in my experience, now that being said not all their games are fun, but that's another issue.
 
Nothing-burger? Does it come with something-cheese?


100% optional, but the game requires 500% more time to go do side quests. But for the low price of your parents wallet, you can get an XP booster to skip the games content quicker. Also you can buy gear from the store.

I would never play the game cause HAHAHA micro-transaction induced grinds are not fun, but I hear people used a cheat to basically get everything off the store for nothing. After all, the micro-transactions are 100% optional... to pay that is HAHA.

But no seriously the game has been given a horrible MetaCritic user score from the community.

metacritic scores are nothing but hate circlejerks, that anyone can review. Check the steam reviews, very positive.
 

...
If players simply didn’t buy these crates, they would not be added into games in future.”

This is a big load of bollocks and they know it: even if 99.99% of players "simply" didn't buy crates, ubisoft would still be adding them, potentially harming the experience for the great majority of players to sell to that 0.01 percent.
 
Back
Top