Intro
In the last year, the majority of angst that players have displayed has been towards the two nastiest video-game trends in recent history. These of course being microtransactions and loot-boxes, a pair of heinous little devils that have been inserting themselves into our beloved games, altering and forcing the game to accommodate them (and making them universally worse).
Separate from these problems, there is something else I have noticed that has received slightly less attention. Another issue that, I believe, stems from the aforementioned devils. That is the increasing practice of the “limited time event” (LTE).
First, I should define exactly what I mean by those three sequential words. An LTE usually coincides with the period of a national holiday or season (Halloween, christmas or easter). The game will then be given a gentle makeover to suit the theme. It is a good concept. The developers show they care about their game and give their players an opportunity to engage in the revelling for whatever holiday it is. They usually add content as well, whether it be a map, or some items to use.
So why could it be bad? Seasonal events surely require significant time and resource investment to create a multitude of new content – maps, weapons, cosmetic items and such. The problem comes when these items are only available during the event period. If a player feels pressured or forced to play a game otherwise lose out on a good item, then that is bad.
My First Experiences With Loot Boxes
The earliest instances I can remember of the LTE was in World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. In the former, camps would be set up in certain locations (usually near the major cities) and there would be literal in-game festivals you could attend. There would be daily quests and little challenges to complete to earn rewards (at least that’s how I remember it). There was also special bosses (like the Headless Horseman at Halloween) who would drop special items (including extremely rare and sort-after things like mounts and the like). Team Fortress 2 had, as far as I remember, christmas-time events. At that point, christmas themed crates would be circulated in the economy. Yes, there was a literal economy in TF2 based around hats. It experienced an undue amount of inflation towards the end of my time with the game, which it still suffers from today. Granted TF2 had literal loot-boxes, but the items contained within did actually have value in the in-game economy. You could very easily acquire these “festive” items after the period had ended. You could swap whatever you got in a box for something of equal or greater value. Some “strange festive” weapons became, in my time, the most rare and expensive items in existence.
So yes, in these examples, the events have added to the game, and they continue, to an extent to do so. I suppose with WoW you could argue that bosses disappear after the event and thus the items cannot be acquired, but I’d say a significantly large amount of effort went into it. Of course, I have not played WoW for many years and so my memory of that game is hazy.
Present Day LTEs
Moving to the present. Countless games seem to be implementing LTEs these days. Grand Theft Auto, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Killing Floor being large examples. Unfortunately, these games all share a deadly trait. Yes. They all have micro-transaction systems.
What am I suggesting here? Well, I’ll put it plainly. Today, LTEs have become an extension of the microtransaction business model. There is a term I have heard used to describe what goes on, which is known as ‘artificial scarcity’. Basically, this means to put pressure on a customer to buy something under the pretence that if they do not, it will soon become unavailable. It is slightly similar to the whole “limited-time offers” that happen across the business landscape. In terms of gaming, it usually is linked to microtransaction systems where the player is given the opportunity to get something unique in a specific window, or lose out on it forever.
Overwatch LTEs
Overwatch is the most prolific with its timed events. They have a good four or five events per year. They have limited-time event “skins” for a few heroes, along with the occasional redress of a map and a game-mode. These game-modes disappear after the event ends. Oh, there are also emotes, some sprays and voice lines and career icons as well.
Let me firstly say that I believe the whole sprays and career icons are designed solely to pad out the kinds of junk you can get in the loot-boxes. To compare it to TF2, the junk you get on that game has value. Weapons can be scrapped into metal, the currency of the game (granted a tiny amount, but after a while it builds up). Not to mention that on most Steam games, you can set your own spray and in-game image from anything in existence as long as it is a certain image format and size. The Overwatch voice lines are slightly less useless, only because some of them are quite humourous. But you cannot hear them in the battle so there is not much else to them save a few seconds of humour value. Compare Overwatch’s voice command system with a game like TF2’s, and you see the problem.
What about event skins? Well, they are nearly always legendary (meaning the rarest thing in a box), and cost triple the amount of the regular non-timed skins. These cannot be acquired after the event ends in any way – only from lootboxes tied to that event. You earn roughly one box per hour of play. These limitations on acquiring in-game items is frustrating. You earn a lootbox, and on the off-chance you get a legendary, you have to pray its the one you want. It is pretty much guaranteed that you will not get everything you wanted in one event. Whats more, you cannot trade them or swap them in the community. That is what makes those worthless items truly worthless. At least in TF2, you could find a guy wh wanted one of your weapons and trade it to him. In Overwatch you will do no such thing.
This seems rather counter-intuitive. Why create something that not all players will get to experience? Why go to the effort of designing these skins? Well, the answer is simple. It is summed up by this image of Mr. Krabs.
Yes, I know that Overwatch’s loot-box system is possibly the least intrusive of the modern iterations of the practice, but the problem still remains. It is the entire reason, I believe, that LTEs exist in the way they do today. And it’s a definite problem. The reason for that is when the business model of a game directly impacts the way the game performs for the player (in this case, severely limiting their opportunities to get these new items), then that is bad.
But they must make money to continue developing the game. And they do. A stellar video by the youtuber Skill Up titled “The Untold History of EA’s Long (and Rich) Pay-2-Win Love Affair” explains that Overwatch’s lootbox revenue is not a company-propelling jet-thruster like it is for companies like Rockstar and EA who make literal millions, and whose reserve of IPs are dwindling based on the fact. Overwatch’s money from the boxes is, in comparison, relatively tame. Given that they are owned by Activision, that is quite surprising.
But that is besides the point. If all the event content is unearnable in a single event cycle, then you have to pay for a chance of getting it instead. Not paying for it, but for a chance.
This is made worse by what was said before the game was released. Back in 2016, the developers said that all content would be free. I scooted through google and found one such example.
I’m not saying Jeff is lying. Far from it. I’m saying that “free” is, in this case, subjective. it is amazing how that has become possible. The price you pay for items has become subjective. The thing I got for free, some other person may find themselves shelling out. Even then, the amount they pay will not be fixed.
It’s the fated sentence with all microtransaction systems. “Don’t worry, there’s free DLC!” Yes, the one we have heard so many times before. we are drawn in by the promise of no pesky DLC, only to discover the game’s lifespan is supported by microtransactions.
“It’s free if you want,” the defenders say. “It’s all earnable in-game.” What is not mentioned is the time investment required, compared to the simple optional choice of paying. In the case of LTEs, they are designed to literally make it impossible to earn everything in the event. So its false. It’s not earnable in-game. By “it” I refer to that thing you actually wanted, but didn’t get due to the loot-boxes not dropping it.
I’m not saying that there should be no way to reward developers for their work. In concept, microtransactions are good. People who are willing can support the game’s developers. It is when these systems start to take precedence do the problems emerge.
KF2 and the Limited Event
Let’s move on to Killing Floor 2. This is a great game that, in my opinion, ruins an important facet of itself by its insistence on the TF2/counterstrike rip-off loot boxes. Their limited time-events are better than Overwatch’s, however. The maps they add stay. I can load up the game and play Tragic Kingdom, the map added in last year’s Summer Sideshow event. Any map that gets added stays. Take Overwatch, who took the liberty of adding co-op modes in the form of Junkenstein’s revenge and the London crisis one (I forget the name) – an entirely new and potentially excellent facet to the game, even if in a small quantity like it was – it was basically the equivalent of a single campaign mission. That’s the kind of effort they put in!
To go off on a tangent, there is a whole separate ridiculous issue with Arcade, and Blizzard’s seeming inability to make a MENU to hold all the different standard arcade modes like when one wants to play Capture the flag but can’t because Blizzard does not like having more than four buttons on a screen. And don’t give me that “it wont be populated argument” because there are literally millions of Overwatch players, and I would wager that there would be more people on CTF than there are on a great deal of lesser populated games.
Back to the main points. This post has a very strong risk of divulging away from the main topic of LTEs. I am also acutely aware of my own inner feelings on these subjects that make it more an incoherent rant than an actual worthwhile post. But anyway.
I do not know why the developers are so seemingly scared to add co-op modes in full stop. TF2’s “Mann Vs Machine” was a big hit. As well, W40K: Dawn of War II showed me just how excellent even a small co-op offering can be, as a little side-dish to the main game. I have spent 90% (the other 10 being campaign) of my time on The Last Stand as opposed to the actual game.
I just think it’s crazy that those things disappear (the Overwatch event game-modes), never to be played again. The sheer resource they put into co-op makes it so surprising that they do not have it out there for people to play. It’s like spending a long time drawing a that you’re really proud of, then never showing it to anyone. Or just showing it to someone for like 10 seconds before rapidly hiding it away.
The thing is with LTEs, is that the combination of them and loot boxes compounds the probem. I remember watching a video (I can’t remember who exactly said this), but they very wisely put that in order to have a loot box system, you need to add a “bunch of crap”, as the Americanism goes, in order to have the junky “no-one wants” kind of stuff you can get in boxes. It could be viewed as watering down the game in one sense, because instead of making fewer quality items, they divulge into far more numerous low-quality, verging on useless ones.
This ties in to LTEs because if you only get junk in a “loot box”, then you will be more encouraged to buy the items. You combine this with artificial scarcity, and the business strategy of the LTE becomes clearly.
The cosmetics they add in the Killing Floor events are, to me, a waste of time. It feels like they just make whatever the hell they can in an attempt to have these ‘waste’ options that you have a chance of getting in a box. You get a stupid looking clown hat, or tinsel glasses, or something equally ridiculous. I get the feeling they are trying to emulate TF2s tendency towards the silly and ludicrous hats. That was balanced, however, by serious and cool-looking stuff that was feasible to get.
And there are actually some great looking cosmetics in Killing Floor 2 – military helmets, body armour and gas-masks – but they are incredibly rare. Perhaps if they added some proper kit during events, like the aforementioned military apparel or something (that wasn’t SCREAMING gold) then I reckon people would be more likely to pay money during events. The Dosh Vault is certainly a step in the right direction, but the sheer amount of junk that you get still means you are not very likely to get something that you actually want. Or even better, just remove this stupid randomised loot box system entirely and think of a new, more original way to earn players’ money.
To be fair to KF2, the items you get do have actual value. You are able to sell most items you get (including event ones) on the Community Market. This means you can feasibly sell off the junk you get as drops and eventually buy something better. The problem is that, because you only get one drop every four hours, only the most devoted player is going to get more than two per day. In TF2, however, drops happen every half-hour or so, with a fixed cap that resets weekly. There is genuine scope to gradually build up your backpack. In KF2, it’s going to take a lot longer.
So the problem with the game, in essence, is not the events themselves (the maps and things they add actually stay), it is the entire basis upon which their monetisation system is placed.
To conclude, LTEs have shifted to match the increasing monetisation we see in games today. Artifical scarcity paired with this pseudo-gambling is a recipe for disaster. I have reached the point where I am not sure I even want to play a game that has either of the two nasties that shall be unnamed, (hint: they begin with LB and MS respectively). Because if either of those two are present, then I am sure that the dreaded Limited Time Events will surely follow. It is a system built around the concept ‘artificial scarcity‘, and an attempt to essentially pressure players into logging in and playing. The thing is, if you feel forced to play a game, how are you supposed to genuinely be invested in it? To enjoy it? As much as it saddens me to say, the more the hobby grows and becomes more mainstream, the more this kind go thing is going to occur. But perhaps that’s the slightly nostalgic and otherwise cynical me talking. I am not going to generalise the whole industry, but in terms of the huge AAA developments, I do not hold out much (if any) hope for them these days. I did consider doing a post on the state of modern AAA games, but I refrained. At this point, I feel like I’d just be jumping on a bandwagon, and there isn’t much to said that hasn’t been already.
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