You're making up figures that have no basis in real world data (i.e. Cryptic sales figures) to support your argument. They have actual sales data to back up their decision. If putting it in the C-Store would generate more revenue than a promo, then they'd have put it in the C-Store.
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.
Um, yeah... Cryptic has released Z-store ships recently. It's pretty easy for them to compare sales figures between a zstore release and a lock box release around the same time.
You're making up figures that have no basis in real world data (i.e. Cryptic sales figures) to support your argument. They have actual sales data to back up their decision. If putting it in the C-Store would generate more revenue than a promo, then they'd have put it in the C-Store.
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.
Um, yeah... Cryptic has released Z-store ships recently. It's pretty easy for them to compare sales figures between a zstore release and a lock box release around the same time.
But not a ship as iconic as TOS Enterprise. Such comparisons could be made for Cryptic creations, but there is no comparison between TOS Enterprise and other ships.
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?
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.
Well, what if 500 people acquire the ship at an average of $300, and 3,000 would buy it at 30$?
Your number would suggest that there are basically only 100 people crazy, rich and determined enough to get the ship for 200 $, and the pool that buys them at a much cheaper price is considerably larger by 2 magnitudes? But is that true?
How often do you see lockbox and promo ships in the queues or around Earth Space Dock?
Heck, there are apparently plenty of ships (both in the C-Store and in lockboxes or for lobi) that are just bought because DPS Elite players want its trait, they aren't even interested in the whole package! If some minor DPS advantage can convince people to spend a hundred dollars or so on lockbox ships, how much more people that actually want the ship for itself exist, and how much more could you get from them?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
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?
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.
Well, what if 500 people acquire the ship at an average of $300, and 3,000 would buy it at 30$?
Your number would suggest that there are basically only 100 people crazy, rich and determined enough to get the ship for 200 $, and the pool that buys them at a much cheaper price is considerably larger by 2 magnitudes? But is that true?
How often do you see lockbox and promo ships in the queues or around Earth Space Dock?
Heck, there are apparently plenty of ships (both in the C-Store and in lockboxes or for lobi) that are just bought because DPS Elite players want its trait, they aren't even interested in the whole package! If some minor DPS advantage can convince people to spend a hundred dollars or so on lockbox ships, how much more people that actually want the ship for itself exist, and how much more could you get from them?
To be fair, some of the new ships have significant boosts to DPS. Such as the new Disco beam arrays from the Connie and D7 being unobjectively the most powerful in the game. And then you have ships like the Klingon Cleave ship who's trait is insane for torp builds, increases their power by magnitudes. In some cases yes, a trait or a weapon is a pretty minor power boost, but recently cryptic has taken to adding very significant boosts to traits, likely to incentivise people to buy them as, from what I've heard from the wealthiest people in game, lockbox opening is going down pretty quickly.
...from what I've heard from the wealthiest people in game...
There's an old saying in the sciences:
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
There's a science of data analytics, with an entire subset devoted to business analytics. (My wife is getting a Bachelor's in that!) Essentially, while you're "hearing" things from certain individuals, the folks at Cryptic have the actual data needed to construct a business case. And the fact that they were fired by NCSoft, went out and purchased an IP of their own, and are still operating over a decade later suggests that their business case is pretty strong.
For that matter, do you have data to prove these are indeed "the wealthiest people in the game"? Or was that a self-selecting sample of people who say they're the "wealthiest"? It's not like we have a Forbes 500 IN SPACE!!! to give everyone a relative ranking of space-wealth.
...from what I've heard from the wealthiest people in game...
There's an old saying in the sciences:
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
There's a science of data analytics, with an entire subset devoted to business analytics. (My wife is getting a Bachelor's in that!) Essentially, while you're "hearing" things from certain individuals, the folks at Cryptic have the actual data needed to construct a business case. And the fact that they were fired by NCSoft, went out and purchased an IP of their own, and are still operating over a decade later suggests that their business case is pretty strong.
I would say it is more due to luck than Cryptic's Business model doing very well considering how STO was just before it was bought by Perfect World. Perfect World altered Cryptic's Business model with Lockboxes so it would become profitable.
...from what I've heard from the wealthiest people in game...
There's an old saying in the sciences:
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
There's a science of data analytics, with an entire subset devoted to business analytics. (My wife is getting a Bachelor's in that!) Essentially, while you're "hearing" things from certain individuals, the folks at Cryptic have the actual data needed to construct a business case. And the fact that they were fired by NCSoft, went out and purchased an IP of their own, and are still operating over a decade later suggests that their business case is pretty strong.
For that matter, do you have data to prove these are indeed "the wealthiest people in the game"? Or was that a self-selecting sample of people who say they're the "wealthiest"? It's not like we have a Forbes 500 IN SPACE!!! to give everyone a relative ranking of space-wealth.
Yes I'm sure its totally worth ignoring my argument because we can't trust the words of Crosis the literal wealthiest player in the game who no one even comes close to in terms of wealth. Everyone else can be ubiquitious if they're the wealthiest but no one can deny how much money Crosis is worth in game. Dude has so many billions of ec he has alt accounts in order to hold all of it. And while yes, Cryptic does have data, I pointed out in another thread, businesses are not infallible and tend to ignore some stats of data, or interpret data incorrectly. I'm certain that certain players such as Crosis, probably know how the games economy and people's spending habits work much better than anyone at Cryptic does. To be honest, most of the player admins in Nopspublicservice or TheTradingChannel, could give you every single thing you need to know about who spends money and on what, because they manipulate the market in order to maximize profits.
Actually I've talked to Crosis and he really doesn't "play the market" like some people think he does. He literally junks or gives away the minor prizes from lockboxes.
Again, you have anecdotes regarding a single player, who claims to be the "literally richest player in the game". How is this determined? Who has the metrics? How do we know there aren't even wealthier players who simply don't boast of it?
Your dataset is flawed, as its content is self-determined and limited to a single data point. Please do better at data analysis.
Again, you have anecdotes regarding a single player, who claims to be the "literally richest player in the game". How is this determined? Who has the metrics? How do we know there aren't even wealthier players who simply don't boast of it?
Your dataset is flawed, as its content is self-determined and limited to a single data point. Please do better at data analysis.
Also if you talk to Crosis he happily boasts about how much $$$ he has laying around that he can spend on the game.
Yes I'm sure its totally worth ignoring my argument because we can't trust the words of Crosis the literal wealthiest player in the game who no one even comes close to in terms of wealth.
Yeah, no - Crosis is nowhere near the wealthiest player in the game, nor could anyone verify that. Not even close.
As for lockbox opening "going down"... not from the chat I've seen in game.
How can you say he isn't? Dozens upon dozens of people believe it to be so, and there aren't really many contenders.
Again, you have anecdotes regarding a single player, who claims to be the "literally richest player in the game". How is this determined? Who has the metrics? How do we know there aren't even wealthier players who simply don't boast of it?
Your dataset is flawed, as its content is self-determined and limited to a single data point. Please do better at data analysis.
Also if you talk to Crosis he happily boasts about how much $$$ he has laying around that he can spend on the game.
I didn't say it was limited to a single data point, I refered to multiple players but people are singling out crosis specifically because I said he was the richest in game. Crosis does vaguely play the market, but he's currently so wealthy with EC there's not really a point anymore, and he does indeed have a lot of cash to throw at the game, a whale even, though due to a mix of health issues and him absolutely hating disco content he has been far less active as of late.
Again, you have anecdotes regarding a single player, who claims to be the "literally richest player in the game". How is this determined? Who has the metrics? How do we know there aren't even wealthier players who simply don't boast of it?
Your dataset is flawed, as its content is self-determined and limited to a single data point. Please do better at data analysis.
I didn't say I only had one player, in fact I referenced multiple players. and generally who you know they're wealthy is for example rook, who won atleast 18 promo ships in the past couple days just because he's been opening promo packs he had lying around. Many of these wealthy players are willing to open boxes to get ships if they feel its worth the investment, and just watching the in game pop up messages for a while will tell you if someone is as wealthy as they claim they are. But of course you're not going to take that as proper evidence, "Oh he could just be lucky" or "Oh just because he opened up hundreds of promo packs doesn't mean he's wealthy". Because enough is never enough unless you hear it from the gospel of cryptic. Oh economics specialists can't possibly know better than a corporation when evidence suggests that corporation doesn't know itself very well.
You have cited precisely one data point. When challenged on the claim he's the "richest player in the game", you demand we prove otherwise.
That's not how it works. You made the claim; it's up to you to support it, if you want your statement to be believed. Produce these "other players". Prove to us that they are "the richest". Until then, you're just blowing smoke.
Also "richest/wealthiest player in the game" is not clear. Does it mean they have the most Energy Credits, spend the most Zen, or has the most money. Spending the most Zen could mean that they are thousands of dollars in debt and should get some serious help.
You have cited precisely one data point. When challenged on the claim he's the "richest player in the game", you demand we prove otherwise.
That's not how it works. You made the claim; it's up to you to support it, if you want your statement to be believed. Produce these "other players". Prove to us that they are "the richest". Until then, you're just blowing smoke.
I referenced Rook, and others. Thetradingchannel in game is filled for them. What proof do you want? a screenshot of every single characters of every single account of theirs with every single EC in view? I already gave an example of how to prove Rook at least is very wealthy in game as he's won so many promo ships that he's been in the pop up notifications very often.
Also Starkaos they're the wealthiest in terms of EC, though Crosis spends a lot of Zen on the game I honestly have no idea if he's the richest in real cash. I know he spent around 2000 dollars per month before the discovery stuff came into the game since he enjoyed supporting cryptic. All I know for sure is, out of the ec he's by far the richest, having to have alternate accounts in order to hold the billions he's earned. Rook has the most experience playing the market out of the ones I spoke to, though Others have told me about different aspects about it. They know how players spend their zen and when and on what, when gamblers buy up the most lock box keys or promo packs, and when items are going to be low value or high, they've learned the ins and outs of the games economy and used it to make as much money as they can, though as said before Crosis has virtually stopped playing due to a combo of a hatred for discover and his health issues. Rook has cut down a bit more due to simply buying things he think will become more valuable in the long run, though recently he opened atleast 2000 promo packs to get a lot of the promo ships to sell, feeling that since he won around 1 in every 100 packs it was more worthwhile to sell the ships than the packs alone. There are a couple wealthy players that don't really use TheTradingChannel, though every single one there is, the big shots of the channel are aware of.
Rook and a few others explained to me one of the reasons lockbox and promo ships inflated so much is because Crosis was the main contributing factor to them, having opened up boxes almost constantly to sell the contents for profit.
What proof do you want? a screenshot of every single characters of every single account of theirs with every single EC in view?
That would suffice, yes. Opening boxes doesn't prove wealth - in fact, it may prove exactly the opposite. Or it may prove a willingness to grind for Dil to convert to Zen - somebody's buying that Zen, and at current exchange prices it sure ain't me.
You're taking people's word for what they're worth. That's not very scientific.
Dozens upon dozens upon dozens of people believe in Gwyneth Paltrow's goop. (Of course, "dozens upon dozens upon dozens" can mean a group as small as 36 - you can probably find that many people willing to join the Cult of the Mothman from Fallout 76.)
Again, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". What people believe is not data, save regarding data about people's beliefs. If you want to make a statement of fact, Westie, use facts, not what "everyone knows" and "dozens upon dozens believe".
No matter how you look at it, no matter what spin you want to try to put on it, the simple fact is thus: lootboxes are predatory.
Now, it's been said that technically, legally, Cryptic's implementation doesn't count as gambling, since every box yields something of a fixed value that, when sufficiently collected, will always and invariably yield a reward. That's all true, but it misses the much bigger issue, and the entire point of contention most people have with lootboxes (and why the gambling comparison gets brought up so much even in situations where it's not technically gambling.)
Lootboxes in all their forms set a very simple trap. Here's this rare and valuable thing you might get if you just spend a little money! Don't get the big prize? Just try again! It doesn't cost very much. The next box could be your big win. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next... It's no different than a scratch-off lottery. Cryptic's lotto just gives you ten cents of store credit for every dollar you spend on tickets, and by the time that store credit amounts to anything, you've already sunk a pretty substantial amount of money into it.
It's entirely possible to partake of lootboxes responsibly. Spend only what you can, know your limits, know when to cut your losses and enjoy your store credit. But this isn't some common sense skill everyone is born with. It doesn't matter if it's not technically gambling - it ticks all the boxes necessary to qualify as something that can become gambling addiction, and some people, through no fault of their own, are more susceptible to falling into that trap.
There's a reason the DSM-5 classifies problem gambling as an addictive disorder similar to substance abuse.
The kicker is, literally all Cryptic would have to do is put their grand prize ships in the Lobi Store so there'd be a defined end point, a threshold preventing* people with susceptibility to addiction from bad RNG reinforcing that "just one more box" mentality. The boxes could still have a snowball's chance in Gre'thor of dropping the ship so you may not have to open enough to get XXXX amount of Lobi. This isn't hard. But they haven't done it, because the bean counters sure do love beans, and they genuinely don't care what kind of mental illnesses they create or exacerbate to get them.
*There's still the issue of people wanting more than one, and how effective this is at preventing anything depends somewhat on where the price tag is set - 900 to 1200 lobi would be "reasonable" IMO, but I can't say I trust whoever makes these decisions to be anything approaching reasonable, so it'd probably be 1800 or some such, at which point you're almost just as well off to rely on RNG.
And no matter how you look at it, no matter what spin you want to try to put on it, just about every single product or service you can think of and the marketing of said products is predatory.
Do you really need that new smartphone?
Do you really need those designer clothes?
Are those Walmart sneakers just as good as that designer brand everyone "must have"?
Have you ever seen any "as seen on TV" ads? Totally predatory.
We can literally insert anything here and call it "predatory".
No, you can't. If you go out and buy a TV, you get a TV. You don't get a box that might contain a TV, but definitely contains peanuts you can spend on a slightly different TV if you collect enough. Advertising takes advantage of some psychological tricks, sure, but it's very different from the sort of response lootboxes prey on.
You are correct that lootboxes can be used responsibly and I personally believe most do. However, your post is proceeding from a very false assumption that most who open a box are some mindless gambling addict milquetoast who have no control over themselves and empties their wallets unwillingly. I can guarantee you this is not correct.
There are a great many - such as myself - who open boxes to collect Lobi and to sell the other contents for profit on the exchange. Never once have I felt "preyed upon", nor have I have I ever spent more than I wanted to.
Congratulations, you haven't developed a mental illness. You and probably 99% of everyone who's ever opened a lockbox. Nothing in the language of my post suggests that most, or even a lot, of people develop an addiction or fall victim to that "just one more box" itch. What you're displaying here is the flawed mentality behind telling homeless people to just get a job - just because most people can do it, doesn't mean it's easy or simple for everyone. Mental health doesn't work that way.
Those people need to take responsibility for their own actions at some point. No one is going to do it for them.
Mental health doesn't work that way. You don't just tell an alcoholic to stop drinking. You don't walk up to a heroin addict, explain to him why drugs are bad, and expect him to say "Gosh, you're right, what a fool I am!".
Even if it's only a few hundred out of the entire playerbase of this game, it's still predatory, and it's still wrong.
Sorry, but yes, you can. Advertising is advertising - it is designed to incentivize you into parting with your hard earned money for stuff you really don't need. Doesn't matter if it is a TV, shoes, food or a digital item.
I literally just explained to you in clear terms why these are different and you either don't understand or are choosing to ignore it. I'm not sure how else to approach it at this point. I honestly don't know how else to illustrate the difference between paying for and receiving an exact item versus paying for a chance at an item, and then another chance, and then another chance. No matter how either is advertised to you, one is a sensible purchase with a concrete value and only whatever minimal deception is allowed by your country's advertising laws, and the other is a trap designed to part you from your money by baiting you into thinking the next one might be the big score.
It's not the "I want that" part that's the trap. It's the "maybe the next one, maybe the next one, maybe the next one" part. Two different things. I cannot make this simpler.
None of this is stuff I haven't already said, so I expect it won't work this time much the same way it didn't work last time. If it doesn't work this time, well... gg, I guess.
Yes, mental health does work that way. At some point, the individual needs to decide to decide to do something about their problem. Google step 1 of AA. It's very self-explanatory.
More than ready, willing, able and happy to discuss and educate you on mental health issues with you at length via PMs.
Step one is important, yes. But very few people can simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Therapy, medication, support groups, even diet... all of these play their own role. The relative importance of each step varies from person to person but each one has a function. If it was as simple as realizing you had a problem, nobody would ever relapse, and yet...
In short, it is absolutely, positively not as easy as admitting you have a problem. There's so much after that to contend with. I suspect you have little to offer in terms of educating me on the subject.
By that reasoning, Jex, it is absolutely unconscionable that stores are permitted to sell liquor - it's known to be highly addictive, damaging its users' judgement and encouraging them to take just one more drink, that's bound to be the one that makes everything all right...
For that matter, fast food is more predatory than STO lockboxes. At least getting lobi and gear for your ships doesn't negatively affect your health. And yet there they are, people with triglyceride levels more suitable to a tub of butter than a human, scarfing down cheeseburgers - and a certain percentage of them are doing so as a maladaptive technique to deal with a psychological trauma or internal emptiness. Clearly, McDonald's must be outlawed to save those poor souls from themselves!!
Or, y'know, there's always personal responsibility for one's actions...
This isn't Depressive Personality Disorder or ASD or something, where the patient is subject to mental impulses that cannot be controlled short of sedation. This is a matter of spending some money, and supposedly being adult enough to set limits on that. Cryptic isn't "preying" on anyone, any more than Mickey D's is "preying" on people with eating disorders or Jameson's is "preying" on alcoholics.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
But not a ship as iconic as TOS Enterprise. Such comparisons could be made for Cryptic creations, but there is no comparison between TOS Enterprise and other ships.
Your number would suggest that there are basically only 100 people crazy, rich and determined enough to get the ship for 200 $, and the pool that buys them at a much cheaper price is considerably larger by 2 magnitudes? But is that true?
How often do you see lockbox and promo ships in the queues or around Earth Space Dock?
Heck, there are apparently plenty of ships (both in the C-Store and in lockboxes or for lobi) that are just bought because DPS Elite players want its trait, they aren't even interested in the whole package! If some minor DPS advantage can convince people to spend a hundred dollars or so on lockbox ships, how much more people that actually want the ship for itself exist, and how much more could you get from them?
To be fair, some of the new ships have significant boosts to DPS. Such as the new Disco beam arrays from the Connie and D7 being unobjectively the most powerful in the game. And then you have ships like the Klingon Cleave ship who's trait is insane for torp builds, increases their power by magnitudes. In some cases yes, a trait or a weapon is a pretty minor power boost, but recently cryptic has taken to adding very significant boosts to traits, likely to incentivise people to buy them as, from what I've heard from the wealthiest people in game, lockbox opening is going down pretty quickly.
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
There's a science of data analytics, with an entire subset devoted to business analytics. (My wife is getting a Bachelor's in that!) Essentially, while you're "hearing" things from certain individuals, the folks at Cryptic have the actual data needed to construct a business case. And the fact that they were fired by NCSoft, went out and purchased an IP of their own, and are still operating over a decade later suggests that their business case is pretty strong.
For that matter, do you have data to prove these are indeed "the wealthiest people in the game"? Or was that a self-selecting sample of people who say they're the "wealthiest"? It's not like we have a Forbes 500 IN SPACE!!! to give everyone a relative ranking of space-wealth.
I would say it is more due to luck than Cryptic's Business model doing very well considering how STO was just before it was bought by Perfect World. Perfect World altered Cryptic's Business model with Lockboxes so it would become profitable.
Yes I'm sure its totally worth ignoring my argument because we can't trust the words of Crosis the literal wealthiest player in the game who no one even comes close to in terms of wealth. Everyone else can be ubiquitious if they're the wealthiest but no one can deny how much money Crosis is worth in game. Dude has so many billions of ec he has alt accounts in order to hold all of it. And while yes, Cryptic does have data, I pointed out in another thread, businesses are not infallible and tend to ignore some stats of data, or interpret data incorrectly. I'm certain that certain players such as Crosis, probably know how the games economy and people's spending habits work much better than anyone at Cryptic does. To be honest, most of the player admins in Nopspublicservice or TheTradingChannel, could give you every single thing you need to know about who spends money and on what, because they manipulate the market in order to maximize profits.
My character Tsin'xing
Your dataset is flawed, as its content is self-determined and limited to a single data point. Please do better at data analysis.
My character Tsin'xing
How can you say he isn't? Dozens upon dozens of people believe it to be so, and there aren't really many contenders.
I didn't say it was limited to a single data point, I refered to multiple players but people are singling out crosis specifically because I said he was the richest in game. Crosis does vaguely play the market, but he's currently so wealthy with EC there's not really a point anymore, and he does indeed have a lot of cash to throw at the game, a whale even, though due to a mix of health issues and him absolutely hating disco content he has been far less active as of late.
I didn't say I only had one player, in fact I referenced multiple players. and generally who you know they're wealthy is for example rook, who won atleast 18 promo ships in the past couple days just because he's been opening promo packs he had lying around. Many of these wealthy players are willing to open boxes to get ships if they feel its worth the investment, and just watching the in game pop up messages for a while will tell you if someone is as wealthy as they claim they are. But of course you're not going to take that as proper evidence, "Oh he could just be lucky" or "Oh just because he opened up hundreds of promo packs doesn't mean he's wealthy". Because enough is never enough unless you hear it from the gospel of cryptic. Oh economics specialists can't possibly know better than a corporation when evidence suggests that corporation doesn't know itself very well.
That's not how it works. You made the claim; it's up to you to support it, if you want your statement to be believed. Produce these "other players". Prove to us that they are "the richest". Until then, you're just blowing smoke.
I referenced Rook, and others. Thetradingchannel in game is filled for them. What proof do you want? a screenshot of every single characters of every single account of theirs with every single EC in view? I already gave an example of how to prove Rook at least is very wealthy in game as he's won so many promo ships that he's been in the pop up notifications very often.
Also Starkaos they're the wealthiest in terms of EC, though Crosis spends a lot of Zen on the game I honestly have no idea if he's the richest in real cash. I know he spent around 2000 dollars per month before the discovery stuff came into the game since he enjoyed supporting cryptic. All I know for sure is, out of the ec he's by far the richest, having to have alternate accounts in order to hold the billions he's earned. Rook has the most experience playing the market out of the ones I spoke to, though Others have told me about different aspects about it. They know how players spend their zen and when and on what, when gamblers buy up the most lock box keys or promo packs, and when items are going to be low value or high, they've learned the ins and outs of the games economy and used it to make as much money as they can, though as said before Crosis has virtually stopped playing due to a combo of a hatred for discover and his health issues. Rook has cut down a bit more due to simply buying things he think will become more valuable in the long run, though recently he opened atleast 2000 promo packs to get a lot of the promo ships to sell, feeling that since he won around 1 in every 100 packs it was more worthwhile to sell the ships than the packs alone. There are a couple wealthy players that don't really use TheTradingChannel, though every single one there is, the big shots of the channel are aware of.
Rook and a few others explained to me one of the reasons lockbox and promo ships inflated so much is because Crosis was the main contributing factor to them, having opened up boxes almost constantly to sell the contents for profit.
You're taking people's word for what they're worth. That's not very scientific.
Again, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". What people believe is not data, save regarding data about people's beliefs. If you want to make a statement of fact, Westie, use facts, not what "everyone knows" and "dozens upon dozens believe".
No matter how you look at it, no matter what spin you want to try to put on it, the simple fact is thus: lootboxes are predatory.
Now, it's been said that technically, legally, Cryptic's implementation doesn't count as gambling, since every box yields something of a fixed value that, when sufficiently collected, will always and invariably yield a reward. That's all true, but it misses the much bigger issue, and the entire point of contention most people have with lootboxes (and why the gambling comparison gets brought up so much even in situations where it's not technically gambling.)
Lootboxes in all their forms set a very simple trap. Here's this rare and valuable thing you might get if you just spend a little money! Don't get the big prize? Just try again! It doesn't cost very much. The next box could be your big win. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next... It's no different than a scratch-off lottery. Cryptic's lotto just gives you ten cents of store credit for every dollar you spend on tickets, and by the time that store credit amounts to anything, you've already sunk a pretty substantial amount of money into it.
It's entirely possible to partake of lootboxes responsibly. Spend only what you can, know your limits, know when to cut your losses and enjoy your store credit. But this isn't some common sense skill everyone is born with. It doesn't matter if it's not technically gambling - it ticks all the boxes necessary to qualify as something that can become gambling addiction, and some people, through no fault of their own, are more susceptible to falling into that trap.
There's a reason the DSM-5 classifies problem gambling as an addictive disorder similar to substance abuse.
The kicker is, literally all Cryptic would have to do is put their grand prize ships in the Lobi Store so there'd be a defined end point, a threshold preventing* people with susceptibility to addiction from bad RNG reinforcing that "just one more box" mentality. The boxes could still have a snowball's chance in Gre'thor of dropping the ship so you may not have to open enough to get XXXX amount of Lobi. This isn't hard. But they haven't done it, because the bean counters sure do love beans, and they genuinely don't care what kind of mental illnesses they create or exacerbate to get them.
*There's still the issue of people wanting more than one, and how effective this is at preventing anything depends somewhat on where the price tag is set - 900 to 1200 lobi would be "reasonable" IMO, but I can't say I trust whoever makes these decisions to be anything approaching reasonable, so it'd probably be 1800 or some such, at which point you're almost just as well off to rely on RNG.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
No, you can't. If you go out and buy a TV, you get a TV. You don't get a box that might contain a TV, but definitely contains peanuts you can spend on a slightly different TV if you collect enough. Advertising takes advantage of some psychological tricks, sure, but it's very different from the sort of response lootboxes prey on.
Congratulations, you haven't developed a mental illness. You and probably 99% of everyone who's ever opened a lockbox. Nothing in the language of my post suggests that most, or even a lot, of people develop an addiction or fall victim to that "just one more box" itch. What you're displaying here is the flawed mentality behind telling homeless people to just get a job - just because most people can do it, doesn't mean it's easy or simple for everyone. Mental health doesn't work that way.
Mental health doesn't work that way. You don't just tell an alcoholic to stop drinking. You don't walk up to a heroin addict, explain to him why drugs are bad, and expect him to say "Gosh, you're right, what a fool I am!".
Even if it's only a few hundred out of the entire playerbase of this game, it's still predatory, and it's still wrong.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
I literally just explained to you in clear terms why these are different and you either don't understand or are choosing to ignore it. I'm not sure how else to approach it at this point. I honestly don't know how else to illustrate the difference between paying for and receiving an exact item versus paying for a chance at an item, and then another chance, and then another chance. No matter how either is advertised to you, one is a sensible purchase with a concrete value and only whatever minimal deception is allowed by your country's advertising laws, and the other is a trap designed to part you from your money by baiting you into thinking the next one might be the big score.
It's not the "I want that" part that's the trap. It's the "maybe the next one, maybe the next one, maybe the next one" part. Two different things. I cannot make this simpler.
None of this is stuff I haven't already said, so I expect it won't work this time much the same way it didn't work last time. If it doesn't work this time, well... gg, I guess.
Step one is important, yes. But very few people can simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Therapy, medication, support groups, even diet... all of these play their own role. The relative importance of each step varies from person to person but each one has a function. If it was as simple as realizing you had a problem, nobody would ever relapse, and yet...
In short, it is absolutely, positively not as easy as admitting you have a problem. There's so much after that to contend with. I suspect you have little to offer in terms of educating me on the subject.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
For that matter, fast food is more predatory than STO lockboxes. At least getting lobi and gear for your ships doesn't negatively affect your health. And yet there they are, people with triglyceride levels more suitable to a tub of butter than a human, scarfing down cheeseburgers - and a certain percentage of them are doing so as a maladaptive technique to deal with a psychological trauma or internal emptiness. Clearly, McDonald's must be outlawed to save those poor souls from themselves!!
Or, y'know, there's always personal responsibility for one's actions...
This isn't Depressive Personality Disorder or ASD or something, where the patient is subject to mental impulses that cannot be controlled short of sedation. This is a matter of spending some money, and supposedly being adult enough to set limits on that. Cryptic isn't "preying" on anyone, any more than Mickey D's is "preying" on people with eating disorders or Jameson's is "preying" on alcoholics.