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this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Let's be real. You don't HAVE to buy the loot boxes lmao. It's not like they make you any better as a player.
CS skins are practically pay to lose thinking about it. They make you stand out against the map more.
That's how I think of cosmetics in most MP games as well haha. They're immersion breaking.
I'm not even talking about loot boxes
...so is gaming in general. What's your point?
My point is that they're just cosmetic, unlike gacha games or other free to play games where you're FORCED to buy loot boxes to unlock good weapons and items.
A casino REQUIRES you to spend money in order to participate. CS2 does not. Big difference.
Not really. A bunch of F2P games have lootboxes that give you a chance at better weapons / characters early on instead of going through a long grind. The set of CS weapons is the same and does not change.
The community gets upset when it becomes pay-to-win. I wouldn't consider CS to be pay-to-win though so I find the casino comparison a bit inaccurate.
You're the one who brought up the idea that the game is a casino. A casino is pay-to-win, because you literally have to pay money to participate and having more money gives you advantages.
This is not what CS is. You don't have to pay money to participate and there are no upgrades weapons or characters as a result of paying more money.
What are you talking about? Blackjack, poker, literally any card game...these are all parallel games that accompany the gambling. You can play these games independently of spending money. Casinos just make it pay-to-win by offering bets and larger payout tables for high-rollers, etc.
Except you because you can't make the distinction between CS and a casino. That's why I am explaining it to you. CS is a competitive shooter first where none of the loot box mechanics affect actual gameplay, which is more than you can say for a majority of F2P games. A casino REQUIRES you to pay money to even engage in it. I don't get what's so hard to understand about this.
Stop moving the goal posts. Your whole point was calling CS a casino, but there's massive differences between the two that you seem to gloss over. Now, if CS offered higher damage weapons, more health, etc. and the only way to get them was via loot boxes, then sure, I'd agree with you, but that's not what CS does. Calling it simply a casino is just being reductive.
I haven't checked in on Counter-Strike in a long time, but we can and should call out shitty business practices designed to exploit gambling addiction to make you play when you don't want to. I'm not equipped to assess whether CS is designed that way, but gaming in general is not predatory and addicting in this way.
It isn't. There's no grind to get better weapons so that you can remain competitive with other players and no paid lootboxes that give you an early advantage. You start out with the standard set of weapons just like any other player and that never changes. The only addicting thing about the boxes in CS2 is that they look cool but I'd say that that's more on the player to decide whether they want it or not.
It's like saying providing the ability to paint your car is an addicting business practice, which I don't really buy. This is not the same as pay-to-win and the distinction should be made here.
You get no advantage from the battle passes in Street Fighter 6 either, but they're still designed in such a way to keep you chasing the rewards. It can be scummy without being pay to win. But again, I don't know what hooks CS2 has. Last I played CS:GO was when it was $15 and had no microtransactions.
But because they have no impact on the gameplay, the onus is entirely on the player whether they want it or not. At this point you're basically saying that they made the battlepasses and lootboxes interesting and therefore they're bad
No, I'm saying I've seen people who keep playing games with this kind of battle pass, loot box, or other reward system when they clearly stopped enjoying the game, the same way any addict keeps doing something they know is harmful to themselves. Systems like these (and again, I have no idea what kind CS2 implements, but it's a modern online live service game, so it's probably in the ballpark) just want you to be a body in the online queue so that other players have someone to play with, and they chase that goal through nefarious means.
Does a problem gambler keep gambling because they want to, or because they can't will themselves to stop?