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I've spent about £4.5k in cases and keys, most expensive item I've pulled was £100.
Let me play devils advocate, the prizes you get for opening a case are not set in stone, so you are not getting payed out a fixed amount like a slot machine for example. Soooo if all of the people opening cases were to say that any blue item has to be worth at least the price of key+case it would make opening cases closer to the money printing operation.
I know this isn't feasible its just a though experiment.
On the other hand I think I recall a 3kliksphillip video that compared csgo to random chance gambling and due to the community setting the prices so low for everything that they unbox the odds were worse than gambling.
This is why I don't really know what to think of it, is it the communities fault or Valve.
I never said I am pro gambling, I think its a very serious issue.
All I am saying that you are getting virtual goods that you set the price to. That's why on new cases hitting the game first few people that open cases can make profit on each unboxing, because they decide the price of all the items, since they control the whole supply.
I'm trying to exaggerate the difference here, valve doesn't say what the items are worth, people decide how valuable your item is and the price that they are comfortable paying / earning from any given item. In lotto you get a fixed amount that is printed on the ticket, you can't keep the ticker over time and get the effect of its price increasing because it is becoming less and less common to find.
That is why it is illegal all over Europe unless you have a legal Gambling and Casino license in the given country that allows you to sell it and it is not allowed to sell to people under the age of 18+ !
So basicly all loot cases should be free to open and Valve would only be allowed to earn money on it, when people start selling skins and items to each other !
It is a very serious issue that has been taking into the thinking box at a political level now in my country !
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=315f057f-7ad3-442f-9a7e-5ffecf051f76
The European Parliament 2023 Report makes various recommendations to the European Commission and industry to enhance consumer protection with regard to loot boxes. Below, we highlight the main remarks and recommendations:
The European Parliament stresses that there is no specific consumer protection mechanism at EU level to ensure player protection with regard to paid loot boxes;
It also stresses that consumers “should have all the necessary information about an online video game, including on the presence of in-game purchases such as loot boxes and other apparently randomised in-game purchases, and should be aware of the type of content before starting to play and during the game, stresses that such information should be clearly displayed and easily understandable for all consumers before the purchase of the game and before each in-game purchase to better protect consumers, especially minors and young children, and to help parents to understand and control their spending; notes that, when virtual currencies are used in online games, their value in real-world currency should always be clearly and prominently indicated to consumers for each purchase;”
The Parliament calls on the Commission to “analyse the way in which loot boxes are sold, and to take the necessary steps to bring about a common European approach on loot boxes to ensure adequate protection of consumers, in particular minors and young children;”
The Parliament urges that gaming developers provide greater transparency regarding the probabilities of the loot box mechanisms they offer in their games. This should include easily understandable language on what the algorithms they use are trained to achieve;
More importantly, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to “assess during its upcoming fitness check of EU consumer law on digital fairness whether the current consumer law framework is sufficient to address all the consumer law issues raised by loot boxes and in-game purchases and, if not, calls on it to present a legislative proposal to adapt the current EU consumer law framework for online video games or to present a stand-alone legislative proposal on online video gaming to establish a harmonised European regulatory framework that ensures a high level of consumer protection, in particular for minors and young children; considers that these proposals should assess whether an obligation to disable in-game payments and loot boxes mechanisms by default or a ban on paid loot boxes should be proposed to protect minors, avoid the fragmentation of the single market and ensure that consumers benefit from the same level of protection, no matter their place of residence” (emphasis added).
Why it matters…
The gaming industry currently generates a lot of its revenue from the sale of loot boxes to players. The impact of an EU legislative proposal banning paid loot boxes would be disastrous for the gaming industry active in the EU.
Therefore, even if we are still at a very early stage and given that it is uncertain whether the Commission will present a legislative proposal, game developers should closely follow any developments that could stem from the Parliament’s Report, and already considers preparing arguments to present to the Commission against a ban on paid loot boxes.
Policies are great and all, but I don't think they solve the issue, they usually make it more complex to deal with and give way for fines to take place. (still this may be the best way we know to start solving these issues)
I like the point about increasing transparency on the odds which is a step in the right direction. The thing that makes me sad tho is that even banning loot boxes has been somewhat dodged with the release of the P250 X-ray, so I have a feeling its such a successful system / alt currency that it can bend / dodge rules and regulations which just means it has a lot of power behind it.
lowkey scammed
More specifically, the house always wins for every single unboxing, contract trade or Steam market sale, because they're virtual items that cost nothing to generate for them, but do have a monetary value. And said money can go between players, or from player to Valve. Never the opposite, Valve does not pay players. Content creators get a cut from official sales, but that's it.
There can never be an average net positive unboxing, because those items wouldn't be rare, meaning they will hold less value in the market. It's a free market and the value is given by the common consensus among players.
It would be disastrous for any company that would refuse to devise alternative ways to monetize their content. A lot of games fare very well without having a single lootbox/gacha/random chance system.
Besides, even if it were true, would it really be bad if companies that use lootbox in their games would gain a bit less? Games like CS make crazy money for a relatively minimal upkeep cost. They don't even make skins and maps on their own anymore, players do them themselves and place them in the Workshop, and they pick the ones they prefer.
a "loot box" is guaranteed to have something of value in return. eg not technically gambling.
so if you want to virtue signal you can call loot boxes "gambling" thats your right but legally it's not real gambling.