Are Booster Packs Loot Boxes?

[DirkGently]

TCC made a video about this a few days ago, and it's something that's been on my mind recently as well.

I don't play a ton of new video games, but I have an ear to the ground, and the biggest current issue seems to be loot boxes within games, arguably initially made popular by Overwatch and perpetuated by other big hitters like Fortnite. Certain people - especially those who are prone to gambling addiction - can often end up spending outrageous amounts of money on loot boxes within games. Depending on the game, these are often purely cosmetic items with no gameplay advantages. Whenever developers try to sell actual in-game advantages, either straight up (fallout 76) or through loot boxes (star wars battlefront 2), this is almost always met with extreme hostility from players and the gaming press.

So how is Magic any different? They sell randomized sets of playing pieces, with varying desirability, and can also end up soaking up outrageous sums of money - arguably more than just about any video game. And no one can argue that magic isn't pay-to-win. Without investing heavily, there's no real possibility for success in competitive formats. At best you might be able to win at FNM, but anyone competing regularly at GPs is going to be spending a lot more than one might expect in just about any video game.

And on the legal side, loot boxes are coming under heavier and heavier scrutiny. Both in terms of preying on the gambling-addicted and children, but also with the potential to be legally considered gambling and subject to the restrictions gambling has. This, famously, is why WotC has to turn a blind eye to the secondary market. At least in theory.

So there's a few different things to break down.

1) In Magic, you can sell/trade the cards - they have real monetary value

The funny thing about this is that, while it seems better since at least you can get your "money's worth" (unlike a loot box cosmetic or digital card), it potentially makes it MORE likely to be considered gambling. At least with untradeable digital items, there's no possibility of winning, soin terms of getting out more than you put in. When you buy a booster and crack it, you're essentially gambling that whatever you get inside will be worth more than the price of the pack. I don't really think there's any salient argument to be made that boosters aren't gambling for that reason. Personally, I have never and will never buy a booster solely to crack it. I crack boosters for drafts, and if I win them I'll crack them if I can't find someone to draft them with, but that's it. While I love drafting, and of course I'm happy to buy singles for commander decks I'm building, it's hard to ignore the fact that, for some people, gambling is a pretty core part of the magic experience.

2) WotC DOES acknowledge the secondary market - look at Secret Lairs!

So this is a squirrely argument imo. Secret Lairs do, essentially, reveal that WotC is well aware of the price singles have, hence why secret lair: fetches costs so much more, and why the general value is a bit more than the normal price of those cards. Which does potentially expose boosters as the gambling that they are. But the funny thing is, if Secret Lairs become wotc's primary method to sell reprints, they're really REDUCING the amount of gambling in the game. For how much the professor wants fetches printed in $4 boosters, those $4 boosters are VERY MUCH gambling, especially when fetches are the prizes. Whereas Secret Lair: UE, as expensive as it may be, is certainly not gambling. One can imagine a future where WotC does away with all boosters and just becomes the secondary market, setting the prices for all cards and selling them at those prices. As dystopian as that sounds, it would completely fix the "gambling problem" of MtG.

3) Cards don't have inherent value, but can potentially accrue value - so buying a booster pack and hoping some of the cards inside are worth money is more like buying stamps and hoping they become a valuable collectable.

I think this is likely how WotC thinks of this outwardly, to deflect accusations of gambling, although of course it doesn't really hold of to scrutiny. It may have in the early days, but these days people know the rough value of cards before they can ever get their hands on a booster. Sure, cards go up and down, but nobody opened an allure of the unknown thinking "hmm, maybe this will be a valuable collectable one day". Especially with reprint sets, everybody knows what is and isn't valuable going in, so this argument is total BS, even if it's probably what WotC professes publicly.

4) At least when you have to fork over money in a store, you're less likely to keep buying more and more, like people do with loot boxes.

-Arena
-MTGO
-Online ordering
-Credit cards

Yeah idk about that one.

5) How is this a commander-specific issue though?

Shh, I don't want this post stuck in a ghost town like general discussion :laugh:

[toctheyounger]

Well, more or less they are. Micro-transactions in a video game suck, so I prefer games that...don't. It's almost a necessary evil with MtG, at least to get yourself off the ground from no cards to many cards, but that doesn't change the taste it leaves in your mouth.

The thing is about MtG, even avoiding boosters you're still pay-per-play, depending on how far up the echelons of power your lust for cardboard takes you. Buying the latest hotness in singles can be pretty pricey too, and it does get frustrating waiting for secondary market slumps to take advantage.

[3drinks]

I wish WotC would just sell cards direct on-site. Flat rate for every card because they all cost the same for them to produce. I'd be very happy with that.

Disclaimer;
<--- doesn't trade

[folding_music]

Boosters are absolutely gambling! I was kinda hoping that all the lootbox controversy would push them to make more boxed sets (so as to be classified partially as a traditional board game instead of a living ccg thing?) but aside from the Unsanctioned thing and the strange Game Night sets that still seem unexplained and undiscussed to me they're going just as heavily on boosters as ever. All the fold-ins you get in precons tell you to go get more boosters too, it's sorta pervasive. I've felt that it was gambling ever since I was buying Weatherlight boosters and am not really impressed with technical reasons why it ain't.

[gilrad]

WRT point four: A real big factor that reels in gambling addicts is environment. Casinos and scummy lootbox games (not even on EA level, think clicker-type mobile games) purposefully construct an environment that triggers all those compulsive tendencies in a very deliberate way. There are literally researchers who get paid to consult for casinos and lootbox game companies in order to most effectively bring people to a numbed state of mind to the consequences of their spending.

Now admittedly I don't do Arena or MTGO so this may very well be the case there, but paper at least should be recognized as a very different beast in this regard.

[Mookie]

Hmmm... I wouldn't necessarily say that booster packs are loot boxes, but that's primarily due to my issues with the latter term, which isn't particularly well-defined. Booster packs also predate the contemporary video game-based usage of loot boxes, which further complicates things. However, I would agree that both fall under the broader category of gambling... assuming you're just cracking booster packs for value.

On the other hand, I don't really consider participating in a booster draft or sealed to be gambling. If I participate in a draft, I generally consider myself to be paying for the experience - an hour or so of drafting, and another few hours of actually playing games. That amount of entertainment is going to be roughly the same no matter what I open, and roughly equivalent to playing a board game or watching a movie.

Where things get more complicated is when there are prizes on the line. I wouldn't say Rock-Paper-Scissors to be gambling... but if there were a high-stakes tournament with millions of dollars on the line? Yeah, it would lean the other way. Similarly, if there is a higher variance in the value of cards that can be opened from packs, the purity of the draft as a form of gaming becomes muddled, and the monetary value of the cards you open becomes more significant. I do certainly enjoy drafting masters sets, but the letdown when you open Tree of Redemption is pretty significant.

Anyway, I mostly stick to Cube and EDH anyway.

[DirkGently]

Where things get more complicated is when there are prizes on the line. I wouldn't say Rock-Paper-Scissors to be gambling... but if there were a high-stakes tournament with millions of dollars on the line? Yeah, it would lean the other way. Similarly, if there is a higher variance in the value of cards that can be opened from packs, the purity of the draft as a form of gaming becomes muddled, and the monetary value of the cards you open becomes more significant. I do certainly enjoy drafting masters sets, but the letdown when you open Tree of Redemption is pretty significant.

I certainly agree that, where draft is concerned, you're paying first and foremost for the experience. Even if you expect to go undefeated, outside of major tournaments it's probably not worth your time from a profit perspective. The one time I actually made cash money playing magic (GP london), I ended up with $300 after 2 entries that cost me 70(?) pounds each, so I only "made" a bit over a hundred dollars for several days of "work". Could have worked a normal job and gotten significantly more if it was just about the money. You've gotta love the game.

I don't think you can consider tournaments to be outright gambling, though. Yes, there is variance of course, but there is also a lot of skill involved. Sure, you get money if you win, but I'd say entering a tournament is more like being a team owner than the dude in the stands betting on the result. And it's not like you can put extra money down to win extra money.

I never got why people whine so much about trash mythics. Why is a trash mythic worse than a trash rare? You'll open a lot more of the rare than the mythic. I guess it's just because it feels bad to win the mythic roll but lose the specific card roll? Idk, seems irrational.

[pokken]

Given their cash value they are unequivocally *gambling* and that is what I think will eventually get them in trouble and have to change their business model. But I guess it's probably the same thing as what gets loot boxes in trouble. Random valuable stuff.

[ISBPathfinder]

Packs are loot boxes. I hate trading and I have long since tried to stop buying packs and instead buying singles because of this. I do buy packs still but its to support my LGS who doesn't really have much of a singles collection to buy from.

If you want to be in this game for the long run, buy singles. I try to get like one of new cards I immediately have use for early on and then I buy additional copies of other things 3-6 months after to increase my inventory of some specific cards after they drop a bit.

[Sinis]

Personally, I have never and will never buy a booster solely to crack it. I crack boosters for drafts, and if I win them I'll crack them if I can't find someone to draft them with, but that's it. While I love drafting, and of course I'm happy to buy singles for commander decks I'm building, it's hard to ignore the fact that, for some people, gambling is a pretty core part of the magic experience.

There's a thrill of it. I do this still, even as I'm living in my late 30s (though, I typically only do it for sets for which there are still cards I want; I'll usually do some quick napkin-math to find out the likelihood I will crack something I already have). Mind you, I'm exactly the risk-prone gambling type, and I shy away from online versions because there's no secondary value and it seems more fleeting.

That said, yes, they're definitely lootboxes.

2) WotC DOES acknowledge the secondary market - look at Secret Lairs!

That's not an acknowledgment of the secondary market, and you'd have a tough time proving it in court (which is sort of the point).

If it was really a foray into the secondary market, they wouldn't have sold a set of 5 basics TWICE.

[umtiger]

Booster packs are similar to loot boxes.

However, the ways in which so many people engage in magic makes them an important part of the game. And I have absolutely no problem in existing and being a primary way in which the game is facilitated.

For people who dislike what they consider the "pay-for-play model" in Magic, I'd ask them to consider:
1.) Perhaps another game? Bluntly, no one is entitled to play MTG. There are other games available like chess. If I get priced out of Vintage, so what? There are other formats. If I cannot keep up with the meta or don't like being able to "buy wins," I can build a cube. It goes on really, because Magic is a great game and is as deep as you want it to be.

2.) But no...you have to play MTG (why? because it's such a good game...) then what's wrong with paying for it?

3.) "Buying singles" is not the main way a person enters the game. And I think that's actually a good thing. People don't just buy complete decks and start competing. For instance, when I learned how to play, I would ask my parents for $10 to buy 3 random packs whenever we'd go out. That's how my brother and I played at home. So we're supposed to buy singles instead of packs because of EV? EV just isn't the end all be all. It's fun to open packs and it can be responsible. It's like some of you forgot what it was like to learn how to play as a kid. Sure Shivan Dragon isn't "good" but it's what hooked me into playing. My brother and I had more fun playing and building decks with the random cards from boosters than we ever did anything else.

I even convinced us to buy World Championship decks (the gold-bordered ones). And then we played the same match-up how many times? It was boring.

If you believe packs are playing to people's impulses, you don't think having a credit card and access to Card Kingdom or TCG is any different? You ever use EDHREC and see those prices and hyperlinks there? I don't see anyone crusading against that.

4.) If you are against buying packs, then buy singles. But then you're relying on others who do open packs with the secondary market. Just like how there are people who make fun of people for wasting their money on new cars and only buy used cars. How do they think there are even used cars in the first place? If you are squarely set on the buying singles only camp, good for you. But you have no right to get angry when those who crack packs choose to sell you their foil Polluted Delta that they opened at a higher price than the Den Protector that they also opened.

[pokken]

If anyone thinks secret lair was anything other than a trial balloon to see if they could get away with selling singles direct, they're kidding themselves

I am sure Wizards would much rather print the number of cards people want (e.g. 10 copies of Polluted Delta for every 1 copy of Ajani's Pridemate ) and not be so ridiculously wasteful (of their money and the environment).

There are probably tens of thousands of pallets full of old useless magic cards collectively between the major retailers - SCG, CFB, etc., that used to be trees.

[Inkeyes22]

If anyone thinks secret lair was anything other than a trial balloon to see if they could get away with selling singles direct, they're kidding themselves

I am sure Wizards would much rather print the number of cards people want (e.g. 10 copies of Polluted Delta for every 1 copy of Ajani's Pridemate ) and not be so ridiculously wasteful (of their money and the environment).

There are probably tens of thousands of pallets full of old useless magic cards collectively between the major retailers - SCG, CFB, etc., that used to be trees.

At one point I threw away over 10k basic lands. I just couldn't even give them away.

[ISBPathfinder]

There are probably tens of thousands of pallets full of old useless magic cards collectively between the major retailers - SCG, CFB, etc., that used to be trees.

I have soooooooooooo many boxes of old magic cards. Buying singles has trimmed way down on how many crappy commons and such I have but when I do get packs I try to take the things I might use and give away the rest of the pack if possible.

[onering]

Yes, definitely, they are loot boxes. So are baseball card packs.

I do not think that loot boxes are actually a bad thing. Loot boxes done wrong are bad, but when done well they are additive to the game. I think magic does loot boxes correctly, probably better than anyone else. There are several reasons for this, some specific to magic and some that magic does that are just good loot box practices.

1: Magic makes the loot box system THE core system of the game, with pre-cons being alternatives. This makes the loot box mechanic front and center and a feature of the game that is key to its advertising and its description as a game. One of the main objections to loot boxes is that they are done in such a way that the game is either free to play or worse, you have to pay $60 for the game, and yet in order to compete you have to buy in to something extra. Its a bait and switch, and that pisses people off. Magic is upfront and proud of its loot box system, as are all trading card games. This honesty defuses a main issue with lootboxes.

2: Magic avoids the most offensive loot box problem of making certain, overpowered items needed to win and locked in loot boxes. This is somewhat related to point 1, but it goes further. Even though Magic pushes certain designs with the intent that they are powerful, they rarely just straight up print cards that must be ran to have a shot. They instead print several cards that fit that description, enough that there are multiple ways to be competitive in a format, and actively ban cards that cause a certain strategy to become too dominant. This spreads the value of the packs out more over cards, making them less of a crap shoot and making it so the company cannot just create a new OP card/item that you absolutely need to get or be screwed to drive loot box sales. They also don't just print all the good cards at mythic rarity, with many key cards showing up at rare, uncommon, and even common. Certain decks can even be competitive on the cheap. Every year or so $30 RDW is a player in standard. Additionally, they are often wrong about what will be great, some cards get printed with the expectation that they become chase rares or mythics and they just don't take off, while in problematic loot box usage the pushed items are always sure fire hits.

3: The value of the items in the loot box/packs are not driven solely by power level. In addition to the various formats making different cards valuable for power, and different decks and strategies making different cards valuable for power, there are other reasons cards have value. Magic still pushes the collector aspect to some degree. Foils add nothing to the power of a card but command extra value for aesthetic and collector reasons. Alt arts do the same. So do full art lands. Magic also cultivates play styles that aren't strictly competitive, so that weaker cards are often more valuable than stronger ones. PWs always command a premium even if they are kind of mediocre. Some players are looking for certain oddball build arounds or creatures for a tribal deck. Weaker strategies have a legit place in magic where they don't in Overwatch.

4: Wizards uses the loot boxes/packs themselves in ways that give the loot boxes value just for their nature as loot boxes. I'm speaking here of limited formats. The nature of packs as loot boxes is integral to sealed and draft functioning. These formats take the randomness of loot boxes and leverages it into a game play mechanic. This creates a hidden value to all boosters beyond that averaged value of their potential contents. Many boosters are sold to facilitate limited play, and I'd wager that on MTGO that is how the majority or even vast majority are sold. The price thus becomes not only the cost of the contents of the pack, but the price of admission to a game event. It becomes pay to play in the same way an arcade is, you pay to be able to play the game, and for many actually playing the limited environments is more important than what they open. That wizards actually designs sets so that using their loot boxes/packs in draft and sealed allow players to create fun, interesting decks and play them in a relatively balanced environment (as opposed the the chaotic early days of boosters) shows that Wizards is actively engaged in adding value to the boosters beyond their contents. This is one of the reasons I consider the TCG genre as setting the gold standard for loot boxes, and Wizards being particularly ahead of the game. I enjoy draft and sealed, and any money cards I open are bonuses rather than the sole reason for buying in. Online Wizards even offers phantom events, drafts and sealed events that cost less to enter but don't let you keep the cards, and they fire often. These events cost more than half of what actual drafts and sealed events where you keep the cards do, and cube entries cost $10 compared to $12 for a draft.

[ilovesaprolings]

Booster packs come out way before than loot boxes.

[Card Slinger J]

Funny I've actually mentioned MTG being associated with loot boxes several times on the MTGSalvation forums, even gave credible sources to where I got my information from, yet nobody listened. So are we just going to pretend that people like Tara Sophia of MagicalGirls on YouTube and YouTuber Law don't know anything they're talking about so that we'll listen to a more credible source like the Professor from Tolarian Community College on this subject? That's rich.

I do think Tara Sophia goes into a bit more better detail than YouTuber Law does on this considering that she actually used to play MTG before Terese Nielsen left the game from people cyber bullying her on social media. I do remember The Magic Historian talked a little about it as well but not as much in detail as Tara and the Professor have. Me and my playgroup actually had discussions about the whole loot box ordeal a few years ago though I didn't think it was as bad as it was perceived to be.

[RxPhantom]

I'm not sure why the question is whether or not booster packs are loot boxes when they predate them by 20 years or so. So, are loot boxes booster packs? Can me and seven others crack three loot boxes a pop and play a game of Overwatch? Will all the stuff from my booster packs be obsolete when Magic the Gathering II: Magic Harder comes out?

[onering]

I'm not sure why the question is whether or not booster packs are loot boxes when they predate them by 20 years or so. So, are loot boxes booster packs? Can me and seven others crack three loot boxes a pop and play a game of Overwatch? Will all the stuff from my booster packs be obsolete when Magic the Gathering II: Magic Harder comes out?

The advent of loot boxes, and the controversy surrounding them, raised questions about how other, similar things may also fit into the same category. Yes, booster packs are older, far older than 20 years btw because packs of baseball cards share the same central issue of being a randomized product containing wildly different levels of value. Since loot boxes are specifically a topic of contention, including potential legislation regulating them, then they are the anchor of the conversation. We ask if booster packs are loot boxes because loot boxes are the center of the controversy, and thus the question is asking if booster packs should be viewed similarly and subjected to the same potential regulations. Asking if loot boxes are booster packs, on the other hand, frames the conversation as one about whether loot boxes should be less controversial and if we should start thinking about games that use them the way we think about tcg's. That's an interesting potential conversation, but the former is more relevant because there is proposed legislation to regulate loot boxes as gambling, so whether or not boosters fall under the umbrella of loot boxes is important.

The way I see it is that "booster packs" describe a very specific product, randomized packs of cards for a trading card game, which is a sub product of "packs," randomized packages of trading cards. "Loot boxes" is a far more nebulous term that has become used to describe any randomized product in games, and even outside of games (some snack delivery services offer snack loot boxes, and there are other irl loot boxes you can buy). Thus, it has become a shorthand way to describe products that contain randomized contents of variable value that the consumer only has a general idea of what's inside (they know what the general product is, be it snacks, video game weapons, cards for a game, etc, and even more specific info like what expansion, what type of weapon, what sort of snack, etc, but not what the actual specific items are). By this broad definition, boosters fall under the umbrella category of loot box.

Using a logic example, all booster packs are packs of trading cards, but not all packs of trading cards are booster packs, since booster packs are part of trading card games but not all trading cards are parts of games. All packs of trading cards are loot boxes because they fit the definition for loot boxes, but not all loot boxes are packs of trading cards.

[darrenhabib]

The real question is, are loot boxes booster packs!?

[ilovesaprolings]

Booster pack:
- you own physical things
- you can trade what you find
- you can sell what you find
- sometimes selling what you find gains you money
Yeah, i opened my godzilla premium card and found King Caesar version of Snapdax. Bummer, i'm not a furry fan. But my friend is. I'll trade my tiger king for his sweet Biollante.

Loot boxes:
- none of the aforementioned things
Yeah, i found King Caesar in an arena's loot box. Bummer, i'm not a furry fan. Now what?

[DirkGently]

Booster pack:
- you own physical things
- you can trade what you find
- you can sell what you find
- sometimes selling what you find gains you money
Yeah, i opened my godzilla premium card and found King Caesar version of Snapdax. Bummer, i'm not a furry fan. But my friend is. I'll trade my tiger king for his sweet Biollante.

Loot boxes:
- none of the aforementioned things
Yeah, i found King Caesar in an arena's loot box. Bummer, i'm not a furry fan. Now what?

I mean, obviously you can find superficial differences between the two things (assuming we're talking about loot boxes as a very specific type of digital good, and not a broader definition like onering is using which includes packs), but are those differences relevant to the reason loot boxes are generally frowned upon (and thus why booster packs shouldn't be)?

There are digital goods from loot boxes that ARE tradeable in some games - and if they're tradeable then they're sellable. This often puts them under additional scrutiny, though, rather than less, because it brings them closer to outright gambling. Being physical objects seems irrelevant to me. My money in the bank that's "digital money" is just as useful as physical bills.

This is kind of neither here nor there, but in arena there aren't loot boxes, and you don't get card skins in packs, you buy them separately or get them as part of the mastery system etc - I don't think any of it is luck based. Although in the case of the toho skins, you just got them for free by doing events (although ofc events still have an entry fee). In either case, the card and the skin are disassociated, so you can have a skin for a card you don't own, and you can change your existing copies to that skin when you buy it.

[pokken]

The real question is, are loot boxes booster packs!?

If they put the rewards on cards and called them packs instead of boxes nobody woulda batted an eye, so yes

[Card Slinger J]

YongYea on YouTube went into this subject a bit more and while even though it mostly pertains to Triple A Video Games instead of Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games like Magic: the Gathering, I do think there's a very similar parallel between the two:

[ilovesaprolings]

but are those differences relevant to the reason loot boxes are generally frowned upon (and thus why booster packs shouldn't be)?

I mean... yes? Otherwise we should also consider gacha machines loot boxes? Raffles? Many other "random" things that are decades-old?
The problem with loot boxes is that you usually can't use the thing you win (the games where skins are tradable/sellable are a minority) and that the prizes are exclusively found in the loot boxes, forcing you to gamble instead of directly buying.
Not of these points is true for booster boxes.
If someone don't think these things matters and is against loot boxes only because they are "random" are either too detached with reality or arguing for the sake of arguing.