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Lockboxes Are Not Gambling So Stop Saying They Are
canis36
Member Posts: 737 Arc User
No seriously - go to dictionary.com and check out the definition of the word. With the Lockbox "system" you're not risking losing anything. You know - at a minimum - what you're getting: 2 Lobi and one item from a pre-provided list of possibilities.
At no time do you - or have you ever - had a chance of using a Master Key and getting nothing. You will always get something for your purchase even if the vast majority of players, myself included, only buy the master keys and open lockboxes to try and get the "grand prize" of a ship.
At no time do you - or have you ever - had a chance of using a Master Key and getting nothing. You will always get something for your purchase even if the vast majority of players, myself included, only buy the master keys and open lockboxes to try and get the "grand prize" of a ship.
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Great example: if you wanted to buy a ship out of the Lobi store (at a cost of 800 Lobi), you would have to invest ~$250 (at an average of 4 Lobi per box, with keys costing ~$1.25 each) in order to get one! Compare that to the Z-Store ships that cost $25 each, and you can see the problem.
"Guaranteed winnings" doesn't preclude gambling. It's all about the value. If money in is greater than the average value of your return, it's still gambling. (This is why slot machines are classified as gambling - they pay out often, but the payout is almost always less than what you invested.)
You are one hundred per cent correct. Lockboxes are not gambling by any legal or reasonable definition of the word.
And nobody who thinks they are... is going to pay one blind bit of notice to you or me.
"Lockboxes are gambling" complaints are just part of the background noise of the forums... unfortunately.
:rolleyes:
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
The fact that you can work out how much it actually costs to get one of those Lobi ships doesn't mean it's gambling - it just means that the item is ridiculously overpriced. Similarly while you can make the claim that these items you get aren't worth the money put in...well that's just your opinion. There's no physical object you can hold and disassemble for parts or materials so the only measure of value that ship has, or for that matter, that anything in this game has is what the person playing/buying believes it has and there's a wide variety of opinions on it.
It only feels like gambling to many because most people don't care about anything but the "grand prize." I actually pointed that out in the opening post and admitted that I include myself in that group. That doesn't change the fact that calling Lockboxes "gambling" is incorrect.
You provided an opinion where I provided hard facts and numbers to back them up. Hardly a good platform from which to try and make a declaration.
Also: many people have the opinion that slot machines shouldn't be gambling, since they can be "entertaining". This is still opinion, since you can objectively show that the money in will, on average, always be greater than any monetary return. In a world where everyone's time is not equal (when measured by each person's current income and other earnings), you can't put a consistent or concrete value on time. This is why you must use concrete, unchanging metrics from which to make a determination on whether slots are gambling or not. Money in > Money out, so it's gambling.
The same goes for lockboxes. We can compare the cost of equivalent ships because the Z-Store exists. ~$250 ship > $25 ship, so lockboxes qualify as gambling.
It's gambling, it's ploy to grab as much cash as possible from the poor souls that either don't know any better, or are foolish enough to keep opening them. Each new box feeds the power creep machine and continues to pollute the game with faction inappropriate vessels. It's a terrible terrible path the game has gone down.
This is the part where I state that the above mentioned is all my opinion on the matter.
Thank you,
Thread could have ended here
Huh? By your own link:
Lockboxes, by definition, a game of chance. You don't know what you're getting. Doesn't matter if you're guaranteed of getting something, the point is it's random. Your stakes are a ship, or other valuable item. The possibility of loss is not a requirement for something to be called "gambling".
Nice job picking a single definition.
In other news, if you'll look at dictionary.com. you'll see that stabbing someone in the chest, causing them to die, is not 'killing', because killing means " a quick and unusually large profit or financial gain: "
One reason this is a nice revenue source for the game.
We want people to buy keys and this should not ever be shamed.
Long Live STO
It states pretty much anything that is to say, right.
One could just as well quote it and write "This" if one wanted to contribute...
Err... well, maybe not contribute. But you know - do forum things.
Still with signature
time to nerf url links?
GG Cryptic.
dnirg eht nioj
why are people always complaining about people complaining about people complaining (ah TRIBBLE, im stuck in a temporal loop)
to take a chance on; venture; risk
a venture in a game of chance for stakes, especially for high stakes
So, how is it not considered gambling?
Because everything that comes from them, involves money no matter what really and, nothing is 100% ownership of our own, it is all owned by Cryptic and, can be taken away at any time!
So, sounds like a risky venture involving money IMO, which in turns sounds just like gambling.
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Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
How can a transparent material composed primarily of silicon dioxide be half full?
So putting money in for a master key and using that key to open a box that could have something good or something bad in it isn't a risk? Sorry.. it's gambling because you are trying to beat the odds and get something good out of a black box.
vs
Lotteries are gambling because you aren't likely to receive a prize equal to the cost to play it.
Never the two shall meet.
So, if you enter a car raffle (which is gambling), and they give you a consolation fig, it's not gambling because you got a fig?
Exactly. People say that if you added up all the lobi you got from the boxes you'd have to spend upwards of $250 to get the ship from the lobi store. Ok sure...but by that time you will have likely gotten a ship or two from the lockbox as well as all of the other items from opening the boxes. You have to count the value from everything you get as part of the value of the keys you're purchasing...not just the top prize or the lobi ship.
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Your own argument defeats itself with your dictionary.com post... here is what it says:
"noun
1.
the activity or practice of playing at a game of chance for money or other stakes.
2.
the act or practice of risking the loss of something important by taking a chance or acting recklessly"
Lockboxes are by their very nature a chance game or a "gamble" that you receive the grand prize. Unless you receive the prize for which you are buying the lockbox 100% of the time then you are by definition playing a game of chance.
Most people aren't opening lock boxes for 4 or 5 lobi and a smattering of duty officers, they want the ship.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Whatever; the point is, a dictionary is going to list the more common definitions first.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
There are nuances. It's not (legally speaking) "gambling" if you get something of value every time you play. And those little dribbles of lobi are of value. Perhaps not to you, but then some of the lockbox ships are of no value to me and I'd be throwing them in the Exchange if I ever got one of those. (Others, obviously, I'd cling to like a drowning man to a rubber raft.) I can guarantee you that someone out there actually wants that lobi. (Now if only that could be sold in the Exchange...)
Oh wait, because the same word may have different definitions. Sometimes slightly different, sometimes very different. Yeah, I know, human languages are so confusing.
Usually, in dictionary, they put a number for each definitions. Basically : pick one. Not all of them. Which is the case for the link provided.
It's a bit sad, I thought that was one of the very first things we learned at school. Even before, when we start talking.
So yeah, the OP basically destroyed is entire argumentation by the link he provided himself.