Psyonix has announced that Rocket League will soon do away with its randomized loot Crates.
Players of the popular car football game can expect a more direct and transparent item acquisition system within the next few months — one that allows them to know exactly what they are getting before they buy.
Despite the upcoming update, Rocket League players also still have Rocket Pass Premium, DLC Cars, and Esports Shop items available for direct, in-game purchase.
The move is reminiscent of the loot box revamp that Fortnite made with its v7.30 update in January. In this case, the V-Buck Llamas featured in the game’s Save the World co-op mode were changed to X-Ray Llamas, which gave players the option to decide whether to buy the available Llama or wait for the next one on the following day.
It’s probably no coincidence as Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, acquired Psyonix just three months ago.
More importantly, the change may hint at an emerging trend that sees game developers acknowledging the contentious nature of in-game loot boxes and microtransactions.
Loot boxes have become a controversial element in video games in recent years, as a significant portion of the gaming community has compared their randomized implementation to gambling.
The issue has grown to the extent that US lawmakers are already working on legislative measures to ban any form of pay-to-win mechanism in games that are marketed to minors.
In Europe, Belgium and the Netherlands have already ruled that loot boxes are a form of gambling.
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