The controversy surrounding loot boxes and microtransactions as a whole isn't dying down anytime soon, it seems.
In an interview published by GamesIndustry, several game developers spoke on the subject. Among the various opinions, former Bungie developer Niles Sankey, who worked on Halo and Destiny before leaving the studio, pointed out that this is ultimately a business and people should just avoid supporting microtransactions if they don't like them.
Developers have retirement to save for and families to feed... If people don't like loot crates and microtransactions, they shouldn't support the game by purchasing them. And I'd suggest not buying games made by companies that have previously demonstrated insincere business practices.
I stopped developing investment heavy games and I no longer play them. In my opinion, there are better ways to spend your time and life. There are so many great non-addictive/investment games to play.. and there's so much more to life than video games.
Before working at Bungie for almost a decade, Sankey worked on developers like Monolith Productions, America's Army, Volition and Epic Games. Since May 2015 he's been at Nilo Studios as Creative Director working on the first-person psychological thriller game Asemblance, launched on PC (Steam) and PlayStation 4 last year.
Earlier this week, the UK government responded to the formal inquiries on loot boxes made by Labor member of Parliament Daniel Zeichner.
Under-secretary of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Tracey Crouch wrote:
The Gambling Commission released a position paper in March 2017 detailing existing protections in place for in-game gambling, virtual currencies and loot boxes. The paper can be found on the Commission’s website at this link.
The government recognise the risks that come from increasing convergence between gambling and computer games. The Gambling Commission is keeping this matter under review and will continue to monitor developments in the market.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
