Date: November 9th, 2017 10:55 AM
Author: Citrine Immigrant
Call Of Duty: World War 2's Loot Boxes Are A Disrespectful Cash Grab
Some gamers have gotten their hands on early copies of Call of Duty: World War II, and are posting videos and screenshots of the game's new online social space.
There, on the beaches of Normandy several days after the famous invasion, players can run around and see one another and interact to some degree. They can also purchase loot boxes, which fall from the sky onto one of the most famous battlefields of all time. Here, players can now open those loot boxes in public and other players can see the loot.
This adds a social element to the concept of loot boxes and is, I suppose, the natural evolution of what many, including myself, have called unabashed (though perfectly legal) gambling. I've compared loot boxes and the experience of opening loot boxes to that of a slot machine in a casino. With Call of Duty: World War II, Activision is essentially creating the entire casino experience, with all the bells and whistles.
In a casino, there are lots of tricks to get you to play those slot machines. Each one is a dazzling display of images and whirling symbols, clinking coins and blinking lights. You hear the sounds of people winning money echoing throughout the casino; but you don't hear the sounds of people losing.
Now, in the latest CoD, players experience a similar atmosphere---only it's on a beach where, in 1944, Allied troops fought and died to put an end to the Nazi menace and turn the tide of WWII against Hitler. Where brave young men gave their lives to save the world from fascism and tyranny, now you can buy loot boxes and open them in front of other players.
This is a one-two punch of naked, tasteless greed and, as a fan of Call of Duty games, I find it incredibly disheartening.
First, as Jim Sterling points out in the below video, cosmetic items in multiplayer games essentially already make players serve as walking advertisements for loot boxes and micro-transactions. If I'm wearing a really cool Overwatch skin, that might inspire another gamer to go buy some loot boxes, for instance. Now, in CoD:WWII, the very act of opening loot boxes has become an advertisement. (Activision has also toyed with the idea of using match-making to pair worse players with better players in order to nudge them into making micro-transactions.)
Second, it's just a terrible shame that Activision is doing this at Normandy in particular. There are very few places that I can imagine as a worse location for this kind of digital casino (Auschwitz?)
The campaign, at least, looks like a serious take on the second World War. This cheapens that. A game's revenue model should never interfere with gameplay, but it should also avoid interfering with narrative. This has the potential to do both.
I haven't played Call of Duty: World War II yet. My review copy is slated to arrive tomorrow.
But I've been looking forward to the game and still am, in spite of its various controversies (the inclusion of black, female Nazis in multiplayer, for instance, is something I can shrug off pretty easily.) I'm happy to move away from double-jumping and jetpacks in multiplayer, and I was really looking forward to the campaign, which appears to tackle not just the experience of American soldiers, but also the Holocaust.
But this battlefield casino leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Activision is a company that, in spite of whatever other flaws it may have, uses the CoD franchise as a way to raise money for veterans and put them back to work. That's an incredibly important mission.
Out of respect for veterans (and for other reasons already mentioned) the loot boxes of Normandy beach are something Activision needs to remove from the game as soon as possible. It launches tomorrow. Hopefully Activision listens to the many gamers who are already up in arms about this. Loot boxes are problematic enough on their own, but this is a bridge too far.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2017/11/02/call-of-duty-world-war-2s-loot-boxes-are-a-disrespectful-cash-grab
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3790493&forum_id=2#34642571)