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Comment by csommers | Hacker News Reader

At least there’s something physical and tangible with sports cards...I can’t say the same for Overwatch packs etc.

Are people burning through a lot of money buying Overwatch loot boxes? They are just so easy to get by playing, and they serve no in-game purpose. I really think it's a great monetization model. I paid $30 once, I get a new update every month. If you really want some cosmetic, you pay for loot boxes, and either get the item you want, or enough duplicates to get enough credits to get the item you want. I dunno, it all seems very fair to me.

I will admit that some people really do want cosmetics and will go out of their way to get them. I have a friend who really likes collecting "everything". The end result is us playing mystery heroes with remarks from her like "I hate mystery heroes so much" because it means 3 extra loot boxes a week. (I like mystery heroes, though. That's why I play it.) But maybe that's the beginning of a problem.

Similar intrinsic worth though (c. zero).

But there was still exchange value.

Furthermore, the scale and ease of purchase of lootboxes vs. baseball cards are incomparable.

Being unable to resell, or even often gift, the output from lootboxes makes a significant difference as well.

People do sell loot box items in a lot of games... that often just makes the gambling problem worse, because people buy the loot boxes thinking they will make real world money.

Good timing for this - the Team Fortress 2 hat market just collapsed over a change in drop rates.

It's probably worth differentiating tradeable loot boxes, which end up used like stock speculation, from untradeable ones, which seem to be used more like slot machines.

Indeed, letting players try to scam each other seems slightly less evil than scamming the players directly.

I disagree, with an anecdote:

I purchased a completely random lot of Magic the Gathering cards from someone getting out of the game. I turned around and parceled the cards out for a profit.

Those cards had monetary value at least twice beyond the initial purchase - to the purchaser as he sold them to me, and to me as I sold them to someone else. And that's beyond the value of playing the game.

Many loot box items for games can be traded, so markets exist to sell them for real world money. This makes the gambling problem worse, though, not better, since people then think they can make real money and gamble more.

Not only does that value let players cash out to some extent, it limits the amount 'whales' will commit to the game.

Good Magic decks range from "not cheap" to "breathtakingly expensive", but no one assembles tournament-level decks purely from opening packs; they buy at least some of the cards from aftermarket sellers. That's a fixed price for a known good, which gives some confidence that people are making rational buying decisions even when they spend a huge amount.

Even casual players are quite likely to open packs, find some things they want to build around, and then fill out what they need by trading or buying. It offers a backstop on the entire system that digital and especially non-transferable products simply don't have.

That makes cards worse, since they have encumbrance.

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