Are you still a news-site when you engage in nothing but rabble rousing?
Let no one ever mistake this blog here for a source of the news. I'm not. I'm a nobody enthusiast who makes observations on the games industry related incidents I hear about through this medium. Often upwards of one week after the fact, ensuring that I'm not, and never will be, the breaking source of misremembered fact. I maintain such because it is a position without the responsibilities and expectations of journalism, because I like the freedom to comment however I want on whatever I want, and because I'm lazy and do this for fun. I can't be bothered to be prowling about for the cutting edge of the news or, worse than that, actually go and seek that stuff out. I ain't no Lois Lane (You know what they say: She doesn't seek out the news, the news seeks out her) I'm just a guttersnipe feeding off the dregs of the info circuit for his own mild amusement. And yet somehow I still resist the urge to go sabre rattling.
How galling it must be then, for the professionals all over, when one of the most well known 'journalist' sites for the Industry, Kotaku, has a reputation primarily not for it's journalism work, but for making a habit of kicking hornet nests for clicks. For anyone who seriously tries to make a go of the profession this must feel like a blow to the stomach each time they make another transparent swipe at their own job's integrity, turning the whole act into a circus show. I merely mention this because, at this point, it's just so obvious and sad. I can't remember the last time I saw their logo adorn a page which wasn't sensationalist click bait but instead something of value and worth similar to modern Bloomberg gaming articles. Oh wait, yes I do: it was back when their editor was the very guy who writes those modern gaming Bloomberg articles! You'd have thought he'd have left a bigger example on the team he departed from, huh.
But enough posturing, what have they done this time? The usual, taken a topic which has a few legs to walk with and completely drown it with zeal because it's more likely to upset the passing eye that way. What topic? Lootboxes- oh god, it's 2019 again! (Quick, someone warn the world there's about to be a global pandemic!) But, yes, I will admit that there is a point somewhere within the convoluted mess of an article that riled up a storm. Because that's just how this sort of stuff works. They take the vestiges of a point and stamp it into irrelevance with bravado and pandering. To be fair, that does take a certain degree of showmanship and skill, I'm just not sure it's coming out in the right profession or the right medium. But what are we talking about exactly? Well, in the words of a madman "Pokemon GO eggs aren't Lootboxes...". Okay, agree to disagree there but I see where you're coming from, and it could be the grounds of an interesting conversation about what exactly are lootboxes and how we defi- "...they're fun presents!" >sigh<. Why are we still here?
Recently Niantic made a change to the way the policy with which they handle Pokemon Go's Eggs, in that they decided to actually show people the types of potential Pokemon each Egg can contain with little signage indicating rarity tiers of each mon. There wasn't any actual statistics assigned to that signage, however, such as percentage chances or the number of eggs one would likely have to go through to hatch that. (Stuff which seems kind of expected when even Lootbox essential games like Genshin Impact are capable of swallowing their pride to cater) Instead all this really served for was an official confirmation for the contents of Go eggs. Cool. Not to throw water on ya'll Niantic, but we already unofficially got that data years ago. It's called, experimentation and/or data mining. You've saved the community, like, half a day of fiddling around after every Egg update at best. As you can imagine some people were a little more perturbed by Niantic's lack of candour, and it all might have stirred from some old soured emotions towards Niantic's Egg system and their similarities to lootboxes. Only, you know, apparently without the need for full disclosure if we're to bow to Niantic's whims.
For Kotaku, however, this is not only a non-issue; but we're all a bunch of clueless morons for ever deigning to raise this topic in the first place. Why? Because Eggs aren't Lootboxes, dumb dumb, they're really fun surprise mechanics. Wait. No- that's EA's excuse. What did the 'Journalists' say again? Oh, that's right; "Fun presents". (I honestly snicker every time I read that. Did Niantic corporate send you a gift basket or something, what's with the cringe spin-job?) To understand things as their article puts them, Pokemon GO eggs aren't Lootboxes because they don't necessarily cost money to acquire, (Guess that means Overwatch Lootboxes aren't lootboxes) don't cost money to open (Or Genshin boxes, for that matter) and don't offer tangible gameplay benefits. (...we'll come back to that point.) All of these stipulations do raise an interesting point; what exactly are lootboxes?
Well in my mind, they are a mechanic wherein game items are thrown into randomised pools that the player has the chance to pick from at random, very basic and straightforward. (likely redundantly so, but I'm just trying to cover the basics right here, not write in new laws) Quite a lot of lootboxes out in the world today don't actually require real money to be purchased, because most Devs realise that such puts an immediate barrier to partaking in the system which permenately puts some players off. Better to let them get a taste before circling in for the kill. The way one makes money off lootboxes isn't by selling them, that's too gauche, it's be giving folk the 'option' to buy packs and then implementing such low pull statistics that it whittles people down to pulling out their wallets or limiting the number of boxes you can work in at one time or, as is becoming popular more recently, just implementing limited-time events in order to establish a sense of FOMO and override customer's 'common sense' brain nodes. (Why do you think Genshin operates with Banners?) Huh, you know that last one almost sounds like the sort of thing that Niantic do when they make limited time exclusive Egg Pokemon... fancy that.
But none of that even matters when the rewards on offer don't provide tangible gameplay benefits. Except that they do. Of course they do. This is a Pokemon game, duh. What- what do you think Pokemon games are? You catch Pokemon in them, you train Pokemon in them, any method which grants you access to Pokemon is giving a tangible gameplay benefit. How can you- Why do you- who hurt you, Kotaku, that you must now hurt our common sense in recompense? The pool of Pokemon that come from Eggs is substantially important, as they mark the only way in which the worldwide community can guarantee access to certain sought-after Pokemon breeds out of special events. Remember when Deino was exclusive to Eggs? Do you know why that was? It's because Deino evolves into Hydreigon, which is a Pokemon listed among the prestigious number of 'Pseudo-Legendries', so named for their incredible base stats. How desirable, no? But the only to get this one was through eggs? Seems like the kind of thing you'd want to grind boxes for. Only, you can only work on a certain number of boxes at a time, so you'll probably want to buy so speed-ups so that you don't have to go walking 10Km to open each egg, that'd take all day afterall. Oh, but then you have to bear in mind that in order to evolve Deino you'll need to pull him several times, (about 10) which means even more boxes opened, buy more speed-ups. Oh, and the chances of getting a shiny are 1.9% atop of the chances of pulling him in the first place, so if you're so inclined that'll be more time savers for you. I mean sure, you could just grind these. Just have no job, or life or other things to do ever. That's all Kotaku and Niantic ask of you, step up!
There's plenty of horror stories of people spending upwards of $1000 on each Pokemon Go event despite not 'necessarily' being required to because of course there is, that's how GTA Online keeps making more money each year despite operating off of an identical philosophy. But on the other hand John here has a casual friend who's level 39 and never spent a dime. Neither have I, John, but that's because I'm a cheapskate pauper who's so stubborn he'd rather give up on game entirely than let it twist his arm into dishing out money it hasn't earned in his eyes. Not everyone is so stingy, and some people are actually interested in playing the game with some seriousness. Does that mean that Niantic's Eggs are some particularly predatory and nefarious plot to exploit these people? No, they're no more nefarious than some other common systems, and a lot less nefarious than some of the worst ones. But is still makes them Lootboxes. But heck, you can still call them 'Fun presents' if that does it for you, man. Just don't expect the rest of us to get lovey-dovey with Niantic corporate next to you, 'kay?
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