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Comment by Already__Taken | Hacker News Reader

> Disney have a fundamental, core company value of “No Gambling”

> For a concrete example: Every cruise line has an onboard casino – except for Disney cruise ships.

Wow that puts some teeth behind this debacle. I was under the impression this would be a lot of noise and battlefront 3 would sell a billion copies.

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I was totally unaware that Disney so vehemently stuck to their "No Gambling" value. Searching for further reading I found an interesting blog post [0] which explains how new (Marvel, LucasFilm) Disney IP is (was) being removed from slot machines and gambling games.

[0] https://www.onlinecasinoselite.org/post/disney-claims-the-ri...

There was also a PC game, Marvel Heroes, that had their contract pulled recently for no apparent reason.

Some in the player community has claimed that the CEO had a rap sheet and Disney was pull out because of the whole Metoo thing, but pulling out over the heavy use of loot box mechanics may make more sense.

Disney has a long-term outlook for their brands and business. Disney as an entity will almost certainly exist in 2117.

EA? I doubt it. They are doubling down on lazy skinner-box type gameplay models. Their entire business is one act of congress away from total vaporization.

Fascinating. Across the pond, Nintendo has a pretty hard stance against it (but not explicitly since their corporate history has strong gambling ties in the early 20th century), and Akira Toriyama has refused to license his IP to the pachinko slot machine industry while almost every other peer of his has done so.

Apparently, they are down 60 percent over the previous versions sales[1]. And their stock is tumbling from all sales.

[1] https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2017-11-20-star-wars-battlefro...

*Down 60 percent in physical sales

Physical sales have been declining across the board.

And their stock is at a 5 year high almost exactly 5 years after doom and gloom over how SimCity’s DRM debacle would end EA.

To be fair, the stock market in general is near all-time highs. I agree that SimCity didn't have much impact on its own though.

Physical sales down 60% yoy is far from the industry norm [1]:

2016: down 17% (5 percentage points)

2015: down 18% (8pp)

2014: down 13% (7pp)

2013: down 15% (8pp)

(this isn’t a perfect comparison, because the battlefield number is change in count while the industry numbers are change in share, but it’s a starting point)

(edit: despite the industry-wide decrease in share, physical sales have actually been increasing in count since 2013 [2], making the Battlefield decline in physical sales look even worse)

Unless they significantly changed how they sell in different channels (news to me), there has to be something title-specific beyond delivery format cannibilazation going on. Hard to speculate if that’s primarily the PR backlash or a combination of things (title fatigue, short release cycle since last edition, quality…).

I imagine EA is pretty resilient against a single title underperforming though, be it SimCity or Battlefield or whatever else.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physi...

[2] https://www.statisticbrain.com/video-game-yearly-sales/

Indeed, this is the most interesting information in this article. I will definitively look for Disney's reaction !

The most popular Marvel and Star Wars mobile games have used loot boxes since their respective releases 2+ years ago.

> The most popular Marvel and Star Wars mobile games have used loot boxes since their respective releases 2+ years ago.

Is it possible Disney execs simply did not recognize that an in-game mechanic not commonly called "gambling" was in fact gambling? Is it possible when they do a more thorough analysis, they may be upset by this?

I worked on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

I can't answer your question without breaking NDA.

edit: Okay, I get that this is being downvoted for not contributing to discussion, but I just wanted to be clear about why I'm not chiming in on this one in particular, given that I'm generally very actively involved in discussions about stuff like this.

I enjoyed working at EA very much, and I enjoyed working with the folks at Disney/Lucas as well.

And as for the person who said 'just violate your NDA' - I openly associate this username with my real name and provide my contact information in my profile. I don't believe in hiding behind a username - this is me, these are my thoughts and opinions, not some amped-up avatar that I use to blow off steam on the internet.

Can I buy a Lootbox that might have your answer in it?

Then break it. They can hardly fire "swivelmaster."

You're downvoted for providing no value in your comment. If you want to comment a tease "I know the answer but can't tell you.", just don't comment at all.

The downvotes are ridiculous, but you were probably better off saying nothing at all than reply that you were under NDA. For more reasons than just the downvotes.

Now that I have 20/20 hindsight, you're right :)

Loot boxes are a similar level of gambling to opening a pack of magic cards or baseball cards, but for digital objects. Is there randomness? Yes. Does it affect the value of what you open? Yes. Is the primary purpose of the thing being bought the money itself? No. Loot boxes were essentially the main pitch for the Diablo I computer game but it was eventually stripped from the game.

> Loot boxes were essentially the main pitch for the Diablo I

Having not played Diablo, I'm not very familiar with the history.

I know DII at least had a significant secondary player market for items, but the idea of loot boxes being "the main pitch" is new to me.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

The original pitch for Diablo was to build the game with booster packs sellable in stores that added items and skills to characters. They eventually built it with the entire game being self contained, rather than the booster model. But the pitch notes were on HN a year or so back and it was basically attempting to copy the M:TG business model.

Except when you look at all the other areas that Disney allows it's products to be sold via gambling mechanisms.

Such a fundamental, core value that it can be proven false within a few seconds of searching.

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