So I guess some of you guys consider this gambling as well.
Because you may not get the toy you wanted and you may get "tissue" instead of what you hoped for.
Man, those, along with baseball cards, along with other arcade games that gave out prizes. I never realized I had a gambling problem as a child!
I'll just agree to disagree.
There's several difference in both of your cases. Some tangible and some less tangible. For the record, yes I collected sports cards as a kid. I still have several thousand in my parents garage some where.
1) In both of your examples, you're still getting a physical object which you may be able to trade/sell for the item you want.
2) In the case of the arcade/vending machines, you can see how big the item pool is and make a rough guess on your odds of getting what you want.
3) In the case of the arcade/vending machines, you could technically put enough money in to empty out the machine thereby guaranteeing you got the item you want.
4) In the case of the arcade/vending machines, you're generally talking a few dollars.
5) In the case of sports cards, the odds are printed right on the package and the contents of any given set doesn't change so if your goal is to complete the set/series you have set goal posts.
6) In the case of sports cards, some are drastically more expensive than others. But the real dollar value of the possible pulls are too. Even if you don't get the specific card you're looking for there's plenty of other cards with actual monetary value.
7) These are purely "collectibles" and serve no other purpose. So you know what you're getting into before hand.
Loot boxes differ in these regards.
1) In many games, the "junk" loot you get isn't trade able at all, or has little or no in game value to anybody.
2) The odds are not published or even hinted at. This is the biggest complaint most people have.
3) Because they are not physical objects you cannot reach a point where you're guaranteed to get the item. The best you can do is get to the point of it being mathematically unlikely. But you still don't know what that point would be because they don't tell you the odds and it's not a finite pool.
4) In many games, the items from the loot box is not an item you can get in normal play and it's usually superior to what you can get in normal play. This is where the term Pay2Win comes from.
5) Video games are competitive, so the act of adding more and more loot boxes with stronger and stronger loot creates effectively never ending goal posts.
6) Games where you have multiple characters are exponentially worse because the loot is inevitably a per character unlock not a per account unlock. So you may end up having to play this "game" multiple times.
7) In some cases these are games you've already paid full price for and now they are putting valuable content behind an expensive RNG wall.
It also helps if you understand the dollar amounts we are talking about. Again the big distinction is the lack of odds and the fact that win or lose you aren't gaining something of actual money value. The only game I've played in recent history with the loot box model is Star Trek Online. Opening 1 box costs roughly 1 USD. The "grand" prize is a top of the line ship. The best data the player base has been able to assemble (based off player provided results) put the odds around 1:350 to get a ship out of the box. It's probably higher than that even. Again, this has no actual monetary value, you can't sell it on ebay. It's a per character unlock, meaning if you want to fly it on more than one character, you have to buy it on more than one. The smaller prizes in each loot box are also an RNG gamble. You can get a box that contains a weapon with randomly generated modifiers. The odds of getting a good selection of modifiers on even one weapon are probably worse than getting a ship. They've done 25 of these loot boxes so far. If you're the type that wants a "complete" collection of ships, that's roughly $9,000. Per character. Again for something which has zero monetary value.
