Guild Wars 2 has pushed out mystery boxes for another event. Eugh. These are the worst things transferred from Asian MMOs and need to be buried in the history of godawful game design. It's bad value for consumers, exploitive, basically gambling and the opposite of fun. They were bad in Team Fortress 2, they are bad in dozens of asian MMOs and they are bad here.

Here's the deal item store games. I give you money for sensibly priced items, you give me lots of enticing products to get me to buy more. It's that simple. Planetside 2 might not have the greatest starting prices but deserves respect for it's 50% off weekly bundles, 50% off daily deal, triple station cash offers(!) and no god damn mystery boxes, temporary items or other gimmicks!

The only acceptable time for mystery boxes is when money isn't involved at any step.

Guild Wars 2 has pushed out mystery boxes for another event. Eugh. These are the worst things transferred from Asian MMOs and need to be buried in the history of godawful game design. It's bad value for consumers, exploitive, basically gambling and the opposite of fun. They were bad in Team Fortress 2, they are bad in dozens of asian MMOs and they are bad here.

Here's the deal item store games. I give you money for sensibly priced items, you give me lots of enticing products to get me to buy more. It's that simple. Planetside 2 might not have the greatest starting prices but deserves respect for it's 50% off weekly bundles, 50% off daily deal, triple station cash offers(!) and no god damn mystery boxes, temporary items or other gimmicks!

The only acceptable time for mystery boxes is when money isn't involved at any step.

At least with Guild Wars2 you have the option of using in-game money to buy gems for buying these things. I know I would have gotten a lot less of these microtransactions in GW2 if it was just real money like other MMOs. Agreed about the holiday chests for these events though, the Halloween one wasn't bad but didn't get anything great, just got the one for the winter holiday yesterday after getting enough money on my character to buy it only to find it had a little bit of the normal loot & one minipet (compared to the text on the chest where it talks about unique armor/weapon skins & wild tales of loot). Disappointed but glad that I can just play for a while to get my money back versus having to deal with the loss of real money.

I'm fine with them, but that's because I (like you) already know that what you get out is never worth what you put in, and will likely never buy one. Some people find the "excitement" of gambling to be an engaging way to spend time, and if it provides those people with some period of enjoyment then good on 'em.

@Flappybat said:

Planetside 2 might not have the greatest starting prices

You got that right. They need to adjust that nonsense down.

@fox01313 said:

At least with Guild Wars2 you have the option of using in-game money to buy gems for buying these things.

On top of that, all of the items can either be bought using gems or by trading in the wool sweaters and socks that you find randomly from killing enemies. I think the only items you need to gamble for are the minipets and even then, I think there's a way to get them from the mystic forge.

Generally, I don't like this type of mystery box either, but I'm fine with just completely ignoring them, I'm not even remotely tempted to spend any in game money on them, let alone real money. Considering the amount of new content we're getting for free with these holiday events, without a subscription, I find it hard to complain about them using a cheap way to make a bit more money.

You don't have to get it. Everything you can get from the gem store is cosmetic, and as other people have said, it is entirely possible to get it all with in-game cash. There is nothing exploitative about it.

I did the chests for the Halloween event and learned my lesson. Spent about 20 bucs, and I'll never make that mistake again.