General Magic:Legends

Onderzeeboot

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I've heard that the studio that made this game are known for aggressive use of loot boxes. It might cost a pretty penny to actually get somewhere in this game.
 
Is there something wrong with loot boxes/booster packs/making money on selling a product?

They just make the game less fun by pressuring the user into spending more money on stuff to either make the game easier or faster by giving them an advantage over other players in some fashion.
 
They just make the game less fun by pressuring the user into spending more money on stuff to either make the game easier or faster by giving them an advantage over other players in some fashion.

Oh yeah like Booster packs from Magic: the Gathering 1993 -> 2019 :D
 
Oh yeah like Booster packs from Magic: the Gathering 1993 -> 2019 :D
It's not the same as that. You can play most video games with loot boxes like Fortnite, Clash Royale, and presumably this new MTG MMO without being forced to spend a dime. Because of this, lootbox games are incentivized to make a worse gameplay experience for people who aren't constantly dumping money into the game. Sure, you can theoretically play for free, but you're going to have to spend 15 hours grinding resources and another 12 hours waiting to craft a single sword unless you spend $3.99. And you have to do this every time you want a new sword. Meanwhile, you have to open some number of booster packs or other sealed magic products in order to have your own magic collection. However, you can spend money once and have cards to play with forever. My 2004 standard deck can still be played against my friend's 2019 standard deck as long as we're not playing competitively.

Loot boxes might be a similar veneer to magic boosters, but functionally they're far from the same thing.
 
But that’s exactly how Magic works as well. You only get the products if you buy the loot boxes (booster packs) and you get to play for free with those cards forever. But if you want new stuff, you have to open more loot boxes (booster packs)

If the game also allows you to grind some slow free value => Even better/more generous
 

Onderzeeboot

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But that’s exactly how Magic works as well. You only get the products if you buy the loot boxes (booster packs) and you get to play for free with those cards forever. But if you want new stuff, you have to open more loot boxes (booster packs)

If the game also allows you to grind some slow free value => Even better/more generous

To be fair, Magic has an accessible singles market. Playing competitive Magic though, yeah, very close. Gonna cost you lots of money to stay up to speed with Standard. Of course you could opt to play older, less rotating formats, but those require ungodly amounts of money to buy into. The main difference is that you can also choose to play Magic in other, much cheaper ways. There's a healthy pauper community online, and you can build competitive Commander decks for a fraction of the money required to build a competitive Standard deck. These alternative modes are not always supported in video games with loot boxes, requiring you to either slog through a campaign with a severely underequipped character, or spend way more time than you have available. Of course there's also the 'Fortnite'-s and 'Path of Exile'-s of this world, in which non-spending players can be as competitive as spending players. We'll have to wait and see where the new MtG MMO falls, but this particular developer doesn't leave people too hopeful.
 
Yeah okay so loot boxes are exactly equivalent to booster packs but Magic also has the secondary market which we do not yet know if Legends will have or not. So I guess we will have to wait and see if the economy is based on the Magic structure or not.

My guess is people want games to be cheaper. New games so to speak. And any new game cannot compete if they are structured like Magic. Not even Magic’s Arena or Magic’s Legend. They are going to have to be cheaper if they want to dominate the market. (Just like Magic Arena is a lot cheaper than Magic)

But saying loot boxes are bad is a false logic unless you hate playing Magic. The price of the game (total amount spendings) matter. Not if it has loot boxes or not.

What is even more important: The game. Is it fun or not? Paying for the product/making money on the product is secondary to the overall quality of the game.
 
I agree, it depends a lot on how they implement loot boxes (if they implement them). Loot boxes are not inherently a bad thing.

I disagree. Microtransactions (loot boxes, whatever you want to call it) always warp design decisions. This is a mostly non-controversial point. Once you include microtransactions, you want people to buy them. Therefore you'll make game design decisions that exist to do THAT rather than providing better gameplay. It's hard to think of any case where if (as a designer) you were purely interested in providing your ideal game experience but you would also want microtransactions. I don't personally like Jonathan Blow very much, but I think the following talk is insightful on this particular topic:

.

A too-brief summary: he lays out an analogy to the monetary incentives of early television (syndication, needs to be able to air multiple times and without context, needs to be regularly interrupted by ads, etc) and the way those warped choices (in the analogy, it's harder to make contiguous plot arcs like HBO prestige television, etc). This doesn't mean the end product is ex ante bad - just warped to be worse than if those incentives weren't there.


Of course, you've accurately pointed out that this does also apply to Magic! It's absolutely true! I personally vastly prefer the expansions model of Netrunner. And clearly the booster pack commercial model does affect design in unfortunate ways - see for example God-Eternal Oketra in limited, incentives in mythic/rare design regardless of the quality of the resulting constructed format, etc.
 
You are not arguing against my point of view. I agree with above.

The World of Warcraft approach would be my favorite for an MMO.
 
But that’s exactly how Magic works as well. You only get the products if you buy the loot boxes (booster packs) and you get to play for free with those cards forever. But if you want new stuff, you have to open more loot boxes (booster packs)

If the game also allows you to grind some slow free value => Even better/more generous

Quick question- have you ever played a "free to play" game with heavy microtransactional elements? These games are so fundamentally warped to encourage the constant purchase of loot boxes where that you pretty much can't play the game reasonably without paying up. They have things like "waiting" mechanics built in to the game to make the experience inconvenient for all players (including paying customers) just to encourage people to spend money- regardless of wether or not the player actually gets anything new from it. Effectively, free to play games are charging their players money for convenience.

At least with magic, once you have your cards, you have your cards. The only time you need to actually spend money is if you wish to acquire new cards, and you're not actively penalized for playing with older stuff.

I get that the systems are similar, but they don't impact their respective games in the same way. Freemium games charge you for convenience, paper Magic doesn't.
 

Onderzeeboot

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I disagree. Microtransactions (loot boxes, whatever you want to call it) always warp design decisions. This is a mostly non-controversial point. Once you include microtransactions, you want people to buy them. Therefore you'll make game design decisions that exist to do THAT rather than providing better gameplay. It's hard to think of any case where if (as a designer) you were purely interested in providing your ideal game experience but you would also want microtransactions.

Hmm... I get your point, but I think Path of Exile is a good example of how it could and should be done. There are plenty of microtransactions, none of which are vital, though I will admit there are a few that make life just that bit more easy (talking about various stash tabs for those who play PoE). You might argue that PoE would have been a better game had they cut the microtransactions, but I think... not saying I'm right here... I think that the game as we know it today would not have existed if it weren't free to play with optional microtransactions. The current setup allows wales to really splurge on the game, buying custom skins and whatnot, essentially funding the game for those on a tighter budget, while both get the exact same game experience. The only thing that's easier for people with money to spend is inventory management, but the most useful stash tabs can be bought for way less than Diablo III cost you on release. I honestly believe PoE is better now than it could have been without microtransactions, though I will fully admit that most games featuring microtransactions are, unfortunately, not cut of the same cloth.
 
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