Ubisoft has spoken out in defense of the loot boxes. The representative of the company considers them the driver of the games market
Loot boxes are not something bad if implemented correctly. This position was shared by one of the Ubisoft developers in response to criticism of the introduction of loot boxes in Trials Rising.
Trials Rising
The story began in September.
Then the closed beta of the game started. Thanks to her, it became known that Ubisoft is introducing additional monetization — loot boxes – into the paid Trials Rising.
The latter caused discontent among some players. In particular, a thread appeared on the Steam forum criticizing this decision. He wasn’t particularly active. Someone noted that he had removed the game from the vishlist, someone complained about the modern market.
Everything changed when, two months later, a Ubisoft representative came to the thread and left a voluminous message protecting the loot boxes.
“As already noted, these loot boxes contain only cosmetics. I understand why players treat them this way (I’m not a fan myself), however, as also noted, you can just never buy them.
After all, they are intended for those players who want to get something that will help them stand out from the crowd when playing online, as well as for fans of the game who additionally want to support us.
Yes, it means that some players will spend more on our games than others. And as a result, this will affect the increase in our income. It will also help us invest more money in new titles and help us better understand what players want from our games. If players didn’t buy these boxes, they wouldn’t be in our new games.
Summing up: loot boxes / cosmetics are the driver of the gaming industry, they have contributed to the increase in the popularity of gaming in the last decade.
They are not something bad if done correctly.”
It is not difficult to guess that the statement produced the opposite effect from the planned one. Immediately, a sea of comments appeared accusing the company of greed and brand destruction, as well as the fact that Ubisoft does not appreciate the gaming community.
Today, raising or developing the topic of loot boxes in the community is not the best idea. They were treated coolly before. However, after the unsuccessful implementation of loot boxes in Star Wars: Battlefront II, which led to the ban of this monetization in a number of countries, they began to be perceived by the gaming community as something very bad, as a significant drawback of the product where they are.
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