I've said this a few times in various other threads and I'll post it here as well. I type this up every time I mention it somewhere. No copy pasting. I do it this way, even though it takes time because it means something. It may not matter to those reading, but it does to me.
I'll be 35 in 3 weeks, for almost half my life 16-30 I was, to say the least, a problem drinker. I didn't realize that I was an alcoholic and didn't come to terms with that until I was trying to help a friend get sober. In April I celebrated 5 years sober. Not a single sip of alcohol in that time. But during my sobriety I learned that drinking wasn't my only problem, it's many factors. But like most problem drinkers it's a compulsion issues. And these kinds of tactics might have well be tailor made to target people like me. You give us something that we want, and then hide it behind random chance. 1 box, 3 boxes, it doesn't matter how many it takes, we obsess on it. We zero in on it and this little thing in the back of our head SCREAMS at us to keep going. And maybe we do buy 1 or 2 then stop. But then tomorrow that little voice is going "Eh come on, you bought 2 yesterday and nothing happened! You can buy 2 more!" And you rationalize it. It's only a few bucks. Next thing you know you've spent 50, 100, 200 dollars without even thinking about it.
It's almost impossible for someone who has never felt that compulsion, who've never heard that voice to understand. It's embarrassing for us to ya know? When black ops 4 came out I met these 3 guys from Chicago. Was playing black out with them every night. We spent hundreds of hours, hit max level WAY before prestige became available, got part of the way through that. Then the MTX's became to much for me. I realized one night I had spent 50 dollars and hadn't even thought about it. I uninstalled the game and vanished. Those guys, who I spent a lot of time with and considered friends I ghosted. Because I was, am to embarrassed to tell them what happened. That I couldn't control my impulses.
So before you say "It's just cosmetic" or "It's free to play how do you expect them to make money" just think about where that money is coming from, and what it's doing to people just like me. A member of your community, someone who was at "the old place" and has been here since day 1. We are among you, we aren't just nameless reddit posters, or nameless people who's story is told in an youtube video. We are your fellow board mates.
edit made for grammatical errors.
