YouTube Stars Are Shilling Real-Life Loot Boxes, and They Look Terrible

Megalith

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In what Motherboard describes as “the next frontier in mindless consumption,” YouTube stars Jake Paul and RiceGum are shilling for a site called “Mystery Brand,” which invites those with more money than sense to buy “real-life loot boxes”: instead of a virtual item, customers are allegedly rewarded physical goods, which include everything from Intel processors to Lamborghinis. “A customer doesn't know what exactly the box contains until they pay.”

At one point during Jake Paul’s video promoting the store, he spends more than $2,000 total on two boxes only to receive two Apple Watches worth less than $500 each. But it never curbs his excitement. Later, when he gets his boxes in the mail, he acts as if he had completely forgotten what he won. Mystery Brand paid Paul to make the video promoting its website. A small disclaimer appears in the bottom left hand corner of the video and in the description below. We don’t know what Mystery Brand paid Paul, but another YouTuber—KeemStar—tweeted that they’d approached him and offered $100,000.
 
i thought this has been going on for years now called LootCrate or something.
 
i thought this has been going on for years now called LootCrate or something.
Yep, among others. LC doesn't hire shills, afaik, though their recent crates have sucked.
 
Yep, among others. LC doesn't hire shills, afaik, though their recent crates have sucked.
Yeah they did, every time you see someone on Youtube doing a "box opening video" to show off what loot they got chances are that person was compensated in some way
 
Yeah they did, every time you see someone on Youtube doing a "box opening video" to show off what loot they got chances are that person was compensated in some way
I don't watch those sort of videos, so I dunno how common they are. Seems like a waste of time when I could get one myself for $20-30. Of course, if you can't afford one...but then it'd be a waste of money to pay them. And that's ignoring that they generally suck nowadays.
 
Yep, among others. LC doesn't hire shills, afaik, though their recent crates have sucked.
LC you know you're going to be getting a bunch of 6-18 month old pop culture stuff.

This mystery box gambling thing is a bit different(LC is still lame IMO). LC doesn't pretend you're going to get anything from a fidget spinner to a rolls royce in their boxes. That said, to claim LC never hired shills? LOL, they hired tons(maybe hundreds really) of shills at first and still have a few. A better comparison really, would be the old woot BoC.
 
LC you know you're going to be getting a bunch of 6-18 month old pop culture stuff.

This mystery box gambling thing is a bit different(LC is still lame IMO). LC doesn't pretend you're going to get anything from a fidget spinner to a rolls royce in their boxes. That said, to claim LC never hired shills? LOL, they hired tons(maybe hundreds really) of shills at first and still have a few. A better comparison really, would be the old woot BoC.
Didn't say never, though? Otherwise, I agree.
 
the thing is with a card game you can sort of win more.

with this they can charge you $100 and give you $2 of stuff every single time. they choose what goes in.

it's just giving money away and hoping you get something. it's idiotic.
 
i thought this has been going on for years now called LootCrate or something.

This... This is nothing like lootcrate.

Lootcrate is a fun thing, you spend some money, get some stuff. Its never supposed to be a "win a jackpot"/"chance to get" or anything like that. And everything you get is about the price of what you pay. Everyone gets the same things, you dont pay 25$ and get .30c worth of garbage, you pay 25$ and get like a shirt, a short comic, a button or pen or something.
 
This is targeting the market of millionaires willing to gamble big bucks for some fun. Not us "average joes". According to this CNBC report, there were over 11 MILLION millionaires in the US in 2017....so why not tap that market? Seems like a good profit making business to me, wish I'd thought of it. Not so convinced paying YouTube personalities to make shill vids is the best idea, but I imagine there's a reason behind it.
 
I don't watch those sort of videos, so I dunno how common they are. Seems like a waste of time when I could get one myself for $20-30. Of course, if you can't afford one...but then it'd be a waste of money to pay them. And that's ignoring that they generally suck nowadays.
Total Biscuit did a few of them, which is the primary reason I watched it. Other ones I have watched have been other Youtube personalities that had a "career" doing youtube videos, just ended up also having a loot box or two type of thing being a sponsor.
 
Total fucking sellouts. One was even high as fuck on coke in his video. (Coffee my ass)
 
Loot crate also has themed boxes, so think of collectors who go for a star wars crate or harry potter and satisfy some fandom aspect. To give money and may win something is more along the lines of a lottery and makes me think it should be investigated...
 
Gonna be a big box to ship a lamborghini out in. :p
Not necessarily.
11038-BBU-GREEN-Box-det.jpg
 
The thing about casino gambling is you can look or calculate the odds against you in most games. People are greedy so I imagine the odds of you getting anything more than you pay for is extremely small. Although since it is new they may plan on giving away good stuff at first to get a lot of good publicity before they start screwing everybody over.
 
This is targeting the market of millionaires willing to gamble big bucks for some fun. Not us "average joes". According to this CNBC report, there were over 11 MILLION millionaires in the US in 2017....so why not tap that market? Seems like a good profit making business to me, wish I'd thought of it. Not so convinced paying YouTube personalities to make shill vids is the best idea, but I imagine there's a reason behind it.
No this targeting kids. This YouTubers demographic is made up of teens to 20s. This is why it is such a big deal.
 
This is targeting the market of millionaires willing to gamble big bucks for some fun. Not us "average joes". According to this CNBC report, there were over 11 MILLION millionaires in the US in 2017....so why not tap that market? Seems like a good profit making business to me, wish I'd thought of it. Not so convinced paying YouTube personalities to make shill vids is the best idea, but I imagine there's a reason behind it.
If I were a millionaire I'd just buy a friggin Lamborghini if I wanted one.
 
This is targeting the market of millionaires willing to gamble big bucks for some fun. Not us "average joes". According to this CNBC report, there were over 11 MILLION millionaires in the US in 2017....so why not tap that market? Seems like a good profit making business to me, wish I'd thought of it. Not so convinced paying YouTube personalities to make shill vids is the best idea, but I imagine there's a reason behind it.

And probably half of those millionaires are living an average middle class life in super expensive California. You basically have to be a millionaire to own a home in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and other major urban areas.
 
No this targeting kids. This YouTubers demographic is made up of teens to 20s. This is why it is such a big deal.
Exactly. There's a reason you can add funds to this thing with a steam wallet and the big youtube people shilling it have demographics of 8-16 year olds. The idea that this is targeted at multimillionaires gambling for fun is absurd, when those people can just fly to vegas, atlantic city, or wherever knowing there's a gambling commission and that odds actually exist, drop a few grand, get service back in the form of comps, and make it into an actual trip while they're there. They aren't surfing youtube watching cs:go skin unboxing videos.
 
At least they tell you up front that it will likely be filled with crap, although it us usually worth more than you pay, even if it is mostly shit you don't want.
Right. You're also only out $10 and that's if you manage to complete the purchase. This site looks like you could keep throwing money at it as much as you wanted.
 
This crap kills me. While it may be easy for me to know when I'm being sold something, my kids have a harder time distinguishing it. I don't let them watch Youtube unattended, but I still have to explain to them how disingenuous it is and it's like I just told them Santa isn't real.
 
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