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Lootbox Lawsuit and Legislation
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
in Ten Forward
This discussion was created from comments split from: Are you guys planning to get the new Disco Constitution or D7?.
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Im curious. Let's say it works out and Cryptic is forced to give up on gamble boxes one day. How will people react then if they need to get thier most desired ships out of the z-store for lets say 200€ instead? I guess that's how much they will cost.
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Would ships from previous events qualify for this? Because my most desired ships right now would be the Rezreth and the Sarr Theln. Maybe the ship with the double-tap Beam Overload trait. Most likely the reaction would be far better than the current method, as it's a guarantee, and you don't have to rely on someone to hatch a box and stuff it on the exchange.
What though, would happen to all the other stuff? And lobi, for the lobi gear, outfits, and other drek? What about things such as weapon packs? Would they end up going the way of the Advanced Fleet Andorian Phaser weapons, and just be deleted from the fleet vendor?
I liked how LOTRO made it so that players could come across keys for their boxes in game as loot from killing monsters out in the field and such. It wasn't common, but the key drops were there. That you didn't have to rely solely on either farming LOTRO points, or spending cash to try and hatch the boxes.
People need to be careful what they wish for.
If this suit were to happen (almost no chance) and Cryptic were to lose (less then no chance) then the loss of revenue would probably just be the end of the game. If this guy wins, it's bye bye STO.
Fortunately, even if he does find a plaintiff his case is about as strong as we tissue paper. The only thing promised was the contents of the box and that was delivered. Hurt feelings don't count for damages so good luck!
We'll see.
For what it's worth, I hope you're right.
Of course, the quickest way to get rid of things like this is for players to simply not buy them. That's a hard thing to pull off though, there always seems to be those that will just keep feeding this system. Legislation is probably the only way it will ever stop since people just can't seem to control themselves.
Runecape gives members 2 keys, and non members 1 key per day for their thing.
Well atm one would need to pay like 240 lock box keys worth in EC to get 1B which would be the lower spectrum for which the new promships will be sold. Sadly I'm afraid that 200 € for such a ship without gambeling options is already an optimistic estemate for the zen store on my part.
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I doubt the lawsuit will go anywhere, but if legislation is passed there will almost certainly be a set period of time before it goes into effect which would allow Cryptic to develop a new monetization strategy before losing their main source of income. I can only speak for myself but I personally would be fine with paying a sub fee, even though I already have a lifetime sub, if it meant no more lock boxes or R&D Promos.
I think it's less that they don't work and more that MMOs don't have the audience they once had. The two biggest right now, FF14 and WoW, are both still sub based games. STO is targeted at a specific subset of the MMO playerbase (Trek fans), but if a monetization change was forced by legislation I think there's some chance that an optional subscription with significantly more benefits than before could work if they did it right and did some decent advertising at the beginning of ST:D and STP episodes. At the very least I think they would try something rather than just shutting down as soon as a new law was passed.
On a side note, if WoW: Classic is as popular as the fanboys insist it will be (I personally highly doubt it and I played Vanilla when it was new, but who knows), it could have a side effect of getting former WoW players interested in the MMO genre again and looking into what current titles have to offer.
We've discussed the proposed "lockbox bill" in another thread. Long story short: The implementation of lockboxes in Cryptic games does not meet the definition of "gambling" in the text of the proposed bill, so even if it should pass the House and manage somehow to be considered in a Senate whose Majority Leader has vowed to prevent all business from being even voted on aside from confirming Trump's appointees, it still isn't going to get rid of your dreaded "gamble boxes".
Get over it.
Regardless of the odds of the bill being passed I, personally, believe anyone who thinks a judge would find Cryptic's implementation to be allowed under the proposed law is delusional. Further, it has always dumbfounded me that so many players have allowed themselves to be brainwashed into believing that the lock boxes in STO are somehow any different from the lootboxes in other games. Is it fear of losing a game they love? I love STO too and wouldn't be happy if it shut down, but that doesn't stop me from seeing the ugly truth staring me in the face.
Not really... business model goes poof then they re-tool and change. ftp can make money without random gamble boxes. as for ships cost, who knows. quantity vs cost, lots of people wont play the gambles to get ships, they could decide to buy if the ship is in the store.
I would be fine with all of this, they DO need to make money, it's the RNG factor that I have an issue with.
What you personally believe is unimportant. The bill says what it says, in relatively clear language.
Oh I've read the text of the proposed bill, and I respectfully disagree completely with your interpretation of it in regards to STO.
For me what makes the "$200+" ship prices hard to swallow is the fact that it's all at once. I pay more than that with WoW each year between my sub, occasional account services, WoW tokens, and expansions, the difference is that it's spread out through the year so I don't feel it as much. So if they replaced lockboxes with periodic charges for missions and started releasing C-Store ships that were character bound rather than account unlock, I would be happy. The people dedicated to the F2P concept might not be happy because the topic of payment would be brought up much more frequently in-game, but those players will never be 100% happy unless the game has no monetization at all which is simply impossible, Cryptic is a business and businesses need to make a profit on their work.
If Cryptic sold the Tier 6 Enterprise for $30 or even $40, then they would have generated far more profit compared to the profits generated by their gambling system.
That you can say this and believe it to be true astounds me. Do you honestly think that they'd chose the least profitable method to distribute the most highly sought after items in-game?
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If 10,000 people buy a $30 ship while only 100 people buy a $200 ship, then Cryptic would make a profit of $300,000 ship for selling it at $30 while only $200,000 for selling it at $200. It is all about finding the perfect price to make the most amount of profit. Production costs plays a factor in determining the price for real world objects, but that is irrelevant for virtual items.
It costs the same to produce 1 virtual ship as it does to produce 1 million virtual ships. People prefer a guarantee of getting a ship over the chance that they will spend $500 to get something that has an average cost of $200. So there is less people willing to take the risk of gambling for the ship than if it were to cost them $30. After all, there are lots of people that would buy the Tier 6 Enterprise for $30 to $50 that would never gamble or buy it from the Exchange.
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Cryptic has always been cryptic about its sales figures so we can only use examples to show a point rather than real data. Cryptic has no idea about how much revenue would have been created since they put the most iconic ship in Star Trek as part of a gambling box rather than as a C-Store ship. Gambling might be the best way to sell the other gambling ships, but it is extremely doubtful that is the case with the Tier 6 Enterprise. There are far more people that wanted the Tier 6 Constitution and weren't able to obtain it due to it only being available through gambling or exorbitant prices on the exchange compared to the people that actually obtained it.