The defeat of the loot box and its successor, the Battle Pass

Over the past year, the battle pass has become one of the most popular business models for selling in-game skins and decorations. Players will have a system that will reward players for completing quests, while developers get a steady and abundant source of income. In this article, we’ll go over the reasons why the gaming industry loves battle passes and how they work in some games.

Publishers have turned to battle passes as a means of making profits, while loot boxes have become increasingly less effective. The loot box format had its biggest failure in the fall of 2017, and it was all the publishers’ fault.

It all started when WB Games added a War Chest to its single-player title Middle-earth: Shadow of War. You will need loot to unlock the main endings in the game. The items will still be obtainable in the game, but that will take you hours and hours to get. Then came Destiny 2, where you can get cosmetic items through experience points (a system of cheats) or buy loot boxes. The publishers of both games charge $60 for a copy and offer season pass packs—while in the original Destiny, the free DLC content can be seen as a form of proof for the game. in-game transactions.

However, the biggest scandal revolves around the loot boxes in the Star Wars Battlefront II game. These loot boxes will include powerful upgrades for soldiers and vehicles in the game. These loot boxes can be purchased with in-game currency, but a single crate will take you over 10 games to get, and the arcade mode also has a daily currency limit. In-game currency can also be used to unlock “heroes,” Star Wars characters that you can convert during battle. Players are forced to choose between having the chance to play as Darth Vader (which takes 40 hours to unlock) or being able to play comfortably for the rest of the time.

In May 2017, China made it mandatory for companies to disclose the probability that a rare item could drop from a lootbox. Most publishers comply with the new law, but some have tried to circumvent it. Additionally, Blizzard has also stopped selling lootboxes in China; Players who purchase the game’s fee currency will receive these crates as “gifts”.

Other countries are also starting to consider whether lootboxing should be considered a form of gambling. The Netherlands thinks this makes perfect sense, with each item in these crates being able to be exchanged for cash. On June 20, 2018, Valve blocked a Dutch player from exchanging items on Steam and the Steam Marketplace. In Belgium, the state has ruled that FIFA, CS: GO, and Overwatch have violated gambling laws, but so far sanctions have not been introduced. Swedish authorities are considering equating lootboxes with gambling, while France has proposed using a coordinated EU-wide strategy. The Netherlands has already begun promoting their approach among EU members.

And it seems that in 2018, players and governments alike began to worry about lootboxes for the same reason: they do not guarantee valuable rewards, while encouraging increased spending. In this case, the battle pass was already starting to play to its advantage; players can now determine how much they will have to spend to get the respective rewards.

Battle pass is a paid subscription that gives players rewards during gameplay. Usually, players will receive quests for items that cannot be obtained in any other way. The subscription period is renewed for three months.

This is when Valve first introduced the “mission” element. It was a rather chaotic experiment, a combination of many things: players were simultaneously rewarded with coins and points. These scores will help level up the Compendium and provide guaranteed rewards, while the coins can be exchanged for random items that were added to Dota prior to the tournament. As if this method would fail, the statistics took everyone by surprise: players spent a total of $67.3 million on Compendium and scores.

The game’s distribution model and the season system directly affect the profit maximization of battle pass packs. For example, Dota 2 is a free-to-play title that currently only offers a Battle Pass before The International. So Valve has created quite a few limited-edition items. If the player wants to collect all these items from the three Treasures, they will have to spend extra money. To reach Level 2000 (and the highest reward, a Roshan model) you will have to spend over 700 USD.

Since Dota started this trend, many big games have learned and followed.

Fortnite

According to SuperData’s estimates, Epic made $318 million from Fortnite in May 2018. Battle passes for the game’s battle royale mode have become its primary means of monetization. Each Battle Pass will be valid for two and a half months for 950 V-Buck (the in-game currency), or $10 USD.

League of Legends

In 2017, before the world championship, Riot Games introduced the first Master Pass package of League of Legends. Priced at $10, this paid subscription includes a unique player icon, a Gemstone for crafting skins, and 40 additional quests.

Completing missions and players will receive tokens that can be exchanged for in-game currency key shards, lootboxes with skin shards, a summoner icon, and a splash screen. The most valuable of them all is an alternate color palette for the Champion Ashe skin, and a yellow Champion turret skin.

PUBG

PlayerUnknown’s Battleground also got an Event Pass bundled with the new map, Sanhok, on June 22, 2018. The price tag is $10 and will be valid for a month, much shorter. compared to the Fortnite Battle Pass pack. While the game itself is priced at $30, or even cheaper, during Steam’s summer sale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmtpxQGZNs

Dota 2

Following the success of The International 2015 Compendium, Valve decided to go ahead and release 2 more battle pass packs in between tournaments. However, after a while, players began to complain about the quality of the Battle Pass package. Valve tried to diversify them (like introducing quest series for example), but then stopped releasing these subscriptions as of TI7.

Over four years, Valve has finally perfected the formula for its Battle Pass bundle. Each year, in May, players can purchase these subscriptions for $10 or $37; for $37 players will go straight to level 75, but both will offer a lot of valuable rewards.

According to Cybersport