When is DB going to comply with Apple's requirement to reveal odds on loot boxes?
{DD} Smelly
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in The Bridge
I mean, it's been a couple weeks now and still no change in the game or any official word that I've seen from DB about how they plan to comply (or not) with Apple's new requirement to reveal odds on loot boxes. Can we get some official info from someone at DB on this?
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Plus, I’m guessing that no particular game will be on Apple’s radar unless someone complains about it
I probably wouldn’t unless what they post are ridiculously low odds for good stuff
They need to provide the code & algorithm.. or run gazillion pulls to verify the numbers.
Apple could afford it.
So could Google.
Dibs on the account once there done with it.
Apple treats developers similar to the way DB treat us players. Developers come and go.
Apple doesn’t have much incentive like DB has no incentive to treat us better.
All the news about displaying the odds etc prob just public stunt, just like DB has told us in their many posting.
Matt
If they would rather shut the game down than cough up the odds then that's sounds pretty shady in my book.
Meh... I’m out my $100 for 17 months...
Whales 🐳 on the other hand... 😝😝😝
If it were me, I would just say there is >0.01% to <99.99% odds to win any given prize, and be done with it. (From a business standpoint.)
This game is my escape from everyday life. Perhaps I do need to quit cold turkey though
If that happens, DB shuts it's doors. STT is the cash cow for the company. Walking Dead isn't doing as well as they hoped and GoTA is aging.
DB would comply with Apple's requirements before DB would shut down the game. Shutting down the game is the same thing as everyone at DB quitting their jobs.
Plus, eventually the game will end. It doesn't matter if you are f2p or if you spend 10k a month on the game. When it ends, it ends and every player ends up with a big screen full of nothing.
You absolutely can show the odds for a given prize on RNG. All RNG does is say items in group 1 will show up X% of the time, items from group 2 will show up Y% of the time, and items from group 3 will show up Z% of the time. It can obviously get more complicated--you could have a 1,000 different items with different odds of showing up, but the percentages/odds of something happening are known (to the developers).
That being said, if I was a business I wouldn't want to show odds of something because most people don't understand what odds mean or how statistics work. For example, if something has a 1 in 10 chance of happening many people think that the event has to happen if you pull 10 times. That is absolutely wrong. However, people will think that and complain and make my life miserable because they don't understand such things (we see this all the time on this board already).
I play STT, Marvel Future Fight, and DC Legends on iOS every day. All three have in-app lootbox purchases. None have been updated to reveal numerical odds of specific item drops.
However, it’s not clear exactly what the Apple developer guidelines require. To me, “odds” means numbers, but we don’t have enough info yet to know whether Apple will require numbers, or vaguer indicators of odds.
Of the three I mentioned, DCL and STT give at least some vague sense of relative rarities. MFF has been experiencing its own uproar of late over lootboxes, and its in-game info about the lootbox contents is the worst of these three.
Apple didn’t entirely ban loot boxes that can be purchased inside the game with in-game currency. The regulators however might decide to address this type of loot box as well. There are many game elements that are randomized, therefore the question arises of where the distinction will take place. It’s one thing to ban something that is purchasable, but if any randomized game element is banned, pandora’s box will open. My guess is that regulators will focus on purchasable items and games that are made for kids.
Source:http://blog.soom.la/2018/01/3-thoughts-about-new-loot-box-regulations.html
The thing is, DB does sell loot boxes for real money. They have the 10 for $10 offer and other similar offers. So either they’ll have to release the odds on the premium 10x pulls or they’ll have to take those offers away. One can also argue that the weekly $100 offer for event crew also falls into this. You’re not only paying for the 2/5 but as per the graphic and the wording you’re also paying for 10x 10 event pulls. And since that’s real money they would have to change those offers or release odds.
Keep in mind that it is the 'whales' who have been the ones to pay for the game you are playing today, unlike the way the game was 17 months ago. So keep that in mind and be thankful okay??
Trista
I doubt that very much Trista. A normal video game costs about 50 dollars and you only pay once and those companies still manage to turn a profit. The average player here pays much more then that and whales considerably more then that ..... if DB isn't driving truck loads of dollars to the bank every week then there is something is wrong. Their product is intangible and compared to other products, what costs do they really have?
Server costs are negligible.
I doubt they have more then two or three tech guys.
other support staff (which we all know they have downsized)
Licensing fees
and infrastructure costs.
We all are supporting the game ever time we pay the month card fee or make purchases.... Whales are supporting DB profit margin which I am guess is considerable.
Wrong . First of all DB pumped millions in the development of this game.
And unlike revenue monster Candy Crush STT has a high production value as well. Next to the licence they also have to pay agencies for the translation into various languages. Again something not needed for CC and other simple games (also graphical wise) where basically you only need some good level designers.
Also because it is Star Trek, aka not a mass market thing, and relatively complex there is another problem for king size revenue. Anyone from a lil kid to an old granny can pick up, play and understand Candy Crush and similar games, not the same thing here.
And compared to games like, again, CC, Final Fantasy XV. Mobile Strike etc. the revenue is small really:
https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/2/candy-crush-saga/
https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/164583/final-fantasy-xv-a-new-empire/
https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/58402/mobile-strike/
https://thinkgaming.com/app-sales-data/94910/star-trek-timelines/
It’s called context mom...
You see there was a little thread this week that EWB asked what constitutes a whale... he discovered he was, in fact, a whale having plunked down many times VIP 14.
I in fact argued that whales are great for many of the snarky reasons you outlined.
And the emojis should have been your other clue not to take it seriously. 🖖