And event pets, some of which are required to unlock kingdom power levels…
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This is tricky because it’s highly subjective.
The textbook case is when a gacha troop is only available via premium currency at such low odds it’s improbable you’ll get it without spending in excess. Let’s pick some random numbers way more understandable than how they’re usually obscured.
Let’s say in our imaginary compulsive game spending one Magic Carrot gets you a shot at a 0.1% chance of getting a troop that is stronger than any other troop in the game and is only going to be available this week, with no prospects of re-release. So we expect a buy-in of what, 1,000 carrots on average?
Now imagine players get 1 carrot per week. High-end players (the kind that already have troops like this one) can get up to 10 from events. So conceivably a player who saved up for a year might have 520. Only about a 50% shot.
Now imagine you can buy a carrot for $1, 11 for $10, or 120 for $100.
What we have here is a situation where no player has any reasonable chance of getting the troop without spending a significant amount of money. Now, imagine if this event is paired with a special stage that’s only reasonable to beat with this specific troop, and the reward is another unique troop that will be useful in next week’s event. Clock’s ticking, buddy. If you don’t get this troop, you’re behind next week!
(It’s never actually this easy to figure out your odds. Usually you pay dollars for a premium currency that you spend on other items that you redeem for the gacha troop. That ducks around strict laws that dictate a loot crate == “paying money for a chance at an item”. It turns out they don’t usually close the loop and define it as “paying money for an item that is only usable as redemption for a chance at an item”. The tobacco CEOs would like to point out so long as your one letter different from the law it’s totally ethical.
A more common compulsive purchase situation involves dollars → Currency 1 → Event that gives Currency 2 → Currency 2 is redeemable for Currency 3 → Currency 3 is redeemable for gacha chance.)
GoW definitely isn’t on that end of the spectrum. It takes some hyperbole to suggest GoW is that bad. In those games you trade dollars for items that are needed to win unique things. In GoW you spend dollars on gems that are turned in for shop tiers that give you sigils and stat bonuses in events that award points that affect your standing that might get you an Orb of Power redeemable for a troop. Totally different and totally not layers of misdirection!
It’s observable that gems, the premium currency, are vital to placing on leaderboards. It’s also observable that only the players in higher-tier guilds get enough gems to consider this. It’s also observable that every passing update puts a harder crimp on the gem supply.
FLASH OFFER!
YOU CAN GET A MEDIOCRE TROOP AND 50 GEMS FOR ONLY $4.99 TODAY ONLY! ACT NOW! A $90 VALUE!
Ahem. I was–
MONTHLY DEAL
FOR JUST $39.99 YOU CAN GET ALL THIS GARBAGE AND A RANDOM LEGENDARY! A $120 VALUE!
O… k. As I was–
SAY FRIEND! YOU JUST GOT A MYTHIC!
FOR ONLY $24.99, YOU CAN GET THE TRAITSTONES AND SOULS YOU ALREADY HAVE TO MAXIMIZE IT! THIS IS A $90 VALUE!
That we’re not there today doesn’t mean the game isn’t appealing to the same mental hooks in other ways.
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Every time that a new Mythic is released, one player can compulsively try to get it. And if he used all his keys, he will have to buy gems through the actual and horrible gem/dollar ratio…
I will not say that if a pity timer was there…
I think this is where I’m at – and thank you for the long reply!
Ive actually seen that happen quite a few times in this game…
This was a timely tweet on-topic:
The short story:
The gambling industry handled its threats of regulation by manipulating the stats, which is what you’d expect owners of casinos to do. Only about 2%-4% of the general populace have the genetic makeup and upbringing that would make them a “problem gambler” if they started. So the casinos beat that drum. It’s only 2-4%! It’s people with a disorder! We’re perfectly innocent, someone help those people for us!
But when you take a deeper look and investigate “people who gamble” instead of “everyone in the world”, it gets bleaker. Depending on the study, 30%-60% of revenue comes from those 2-4%. That means the casino’s broke if the “problem gamblers” stop showing up. It also means if you see a healthy floor with 100 slots players, the only reason the house is making money is because about 4 or 5 of those people are willing to take out a 2nd mortgage to keep playing and are likely going to be in debt forever because of their addiction.
It’s not hard to find F2P insiders talking about games where more than half the revenue was coming from fewer than 10 of their players. The people who make the games insist it’s not their problem that a few people have problems, and shift the blame away.
Then there’s some companies who do right. A handful of games out there have spending caps. The last game I played only let you spend $50/month. Nintendo experimented with “free to start” games that acted like F2P until you spent $30-$50, then shut down their store, disabled timers, and gave you free money every hour because you had “bought” the game at that point. Sad fact is that made them look unsuccessful: because nobody could take a loan out on their car to spend $1800 in a day, revenue looked terrible compared to games that allowed it. The highest possible average spend per player is capped in those models. In GoW, so long as someone out there drops a few thousand bucks a month it looks like all of us are spending more.
“It’s rare”. It probably only has to happen once or twice a quarter to work. I think it’s sadder that the system can’t work without luring people who the proprietors admit have poor enough judgement to ruin their lives over a video game.
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That’s already the case in mobile gaming, and has been for years - the top few percent of spenders drive 50% of the game’s entire revenue. Interestingly enough the curve has actually flattened ever so slightly over the past year or two, with a larger amount of players becoming willing to spend tiny amounts. As with most anything technological, the IAP ecosystem is maturing more quickly than its real-world analogue…makes you wonder where it’ll unexpectedly swerve next!
I’m not 100% shure but I’m close to 100%:
In the European Union the chances of getting something in loot boxes have to be disclosed by the devs or publisher (e.g. 0,001 % to get a Mythic with a Gem Key,… and so on).
But as I understand the discussion you (GoW Devs, @Saltypatra, whoever official) have the point of view that we are not talking about loot boxes in GoW so this might not be relevant for you.
My opinion (which is completely irrelevant because we’re talking of legal things and not feelings - such as mine) is a bit different. I think GoW is a typical Loot Box game. What I want to point out:
The “problem” is kind of versatile because there are local differences in law. I played games in the past where all accounts of whole countries where blocked from one day to the other because of legal issues.
And the definition of Loot Boxes might not be the same in all countries around the world.
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