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But there was still exchange value.

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

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.

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

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