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>There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?"

Aren't people upset about both? The whole "gamble for features" is pretty much why the mobile market and console market are divorced in audiences (or at least, community).

People are "more" upset about Valve here because this is in the console space. They've long dismissed the mobile scene as lost.

> Aren't people upset about both?

I'm sure a few people are, but typically no. People are aware that trading card games can be a monetary black hole, but Magic and similar games usually don't take the same heat for the business model that Valve does for loot boxes, even though they're actually worse on paper.

> They've long dismissed the mobile scene as lost.

I'm not talking about the mobile market. Are you not aware that Magic the Gathering is a physical card game? (though it does have some digital implementations too)

Oh you're talking about trading card games? I thought we were comparing to the gacha/lootbox market.

I think the simplest fact is that most people online don't think about offline product. Out of sight, out of mind. It's also an interesting market where WotC and Co. Actively try to avoid the resellers market. They don't want any risk in valuing individual cards themselves, so they stick to boosters.

For digital stuff, you are inherently the market itself. So it's hard divorce yourself when you are the one who implemented trading and controlling rarities and drops.

> usually don't take the same heat for the business model that Valve does for loot boxes, even though they're actually worse on paper.

This is a weird claim. TCG/CCG is far worse than Valve's loot boxes. It's not even close. MTG Arena is huge btw, it's not a footnote.

Their point was that WotC doesn't get the same flak that Value does when MtG is worse, by far, than cosmetic loot boxes.

Yes, I'm calling that questionable. Says who? TCGs have entire formats designed in opposition to the high cost random booster shit. I think that's pretty good evidence that there's high negative sentiment.

Valve is simply larger and took legal heat for people misusing the API.

I'm saying based on sentiment I see as a gamer.

There's plenty of outrage about paid loot boxes and viewing them as terrible, terrible gambling that exploits consumers and ought to be regulated/banned. Not everyone agrees with this take, but it's still fairly widespread.

Now, you do see people pointing out that trading card games are basically still gambling -- and no one really disagrees with that -- you just don't see the same level of outrage about it. What you usually see is grudging acceptance, ala "what're ya gonna do, that's just how these card games are".

I always interpreted that as cosmetics are OK because it doesn't make the game unfair. You can't buy advancement in the game that way.

Subsidizing the game's devel/ops cost isn't a bad thing. Especially if it's optional and doesn't change the game.

Very few people have a problem with just paying for cosmetics in a game. The main issue here is that it's gambling for cosmetics, rather than straightforwardly purchasing specific items.

indeed. and the fact that it can be resold at will makes it much worse as you just created an gambling ecosystem

Most people do have an issue with it, because every game that's replaced loot boxes with discrete cosmetics purchases has to then massively increase the price of them. For 20 bucks in Overwatch 1, you got (afaik) 10 loot boxes which all had 4 random items. In Overwatch 2 20 bucks barely gets you single good skin.

It's very much a grass is greener type of situation in my experience, having been part of communities of both types of games.

> There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?" It's a clear double standard, and I've never heard an actually good explanation for it that makes it sound justifiable.

The closest I've heard to something compelling is that the digital goods aren't the same as actual physical goods, and that somehow that makes it worse, but I still don't find it particularly compelling; I've heard people (often lovingly) refer to trading cards as "cardboard crack" explicitly to joke about how ridiculous it is to be paying for stuff that's essentially just ink and paper.

> There's always this question when Valve comes up of, "why are people more upset about gambling for cosmetics in a game than gambling for power/features in a game?"

Do you have a link to this sentiment anywhere? It's the first time I'm hearing about it.

> Especially since Magic the Gathering and similar card games are very normalized, and have a straightforwardly more evil monetization strategy, since you need to do gambling there to even play the game, it's not cosmetic.

I'm not sure what you're calling "gambling" here, but the way I understand it, it's not merely "a game of chance that you pay money to play". A fundamental feature of it is that the odds are set deliberately so that you're statistically guaranteed to suffer a net loss to the other betting party ("house"). That's not quite the case for tradable items when the "house" doesn't control the price you might sell your item for; the market is the one responsible for setting the price. Note that I'm not saying that's necessarily always better -- there are lots of ways to financially screw people over besides gambling -- I'm just saying it's not gambling, and so it makes sense that people react to it differently.

For items that you can't trade (like where the platform prevents you), that's more similar to gambling in that respect, I think. But then it's less similar from the standpoint that there is zero financial redemption value for the items you win, so it's s arguably still not gambling.

I'm using "gambling" the same way it's typically used in these discussions. If you'd like to convince the rest of the internet that it should only apply to more traditional things like Poker or slots, where the house has some edge, be my guest.