To join in, right click on Rocket League in your Steam library, navigate to the Betas tab, and opt into 'tounramentsbeta.' An update will automatically download, and the next time you launch the game the Tournaments menu will be there for you. Note that you'll have to opt back out of the beta if you want to keep playing ranked games.
I gave it a go, placing second in a 1v1 Snow Day tournament, and it certainly upped the pressure on me—at least until I was embarrassingly down 11-2 in the final match, at which point it didn't really matter what I did. But hey, second!
The interface works as promised, though it took quite a while to join the first matchup after the start of the tournament, so don't quit out even if it seems to have stalled. You can also create your own tournaments, including private tourneys, with any mutators you like.
What's missing? The two main things on my wish list are the ability to chat with participants while waiting for a tourney to begin, and the option to spectate the rest of a tournament if you lose before the final round. The latter is crucial (and if the option does exist, I haven't found it) because private tourneys with friends aren't going to be much fun if we can't all watch the final (streaming can be a stopgap for now).
All in all, the interface is nice and I haven't had any major problems—except for that it's already in style to call your tournament 'Soccar standard' while actually putting the most absurd mutators you can think of in place. I ended up playing one game with a giant basketball in low-g with hyper-fast boost, which isn't as fun as it sounds.
Rocket League loves crossovers. Since its 2015 launch—deep breath—Twisted Metal, Warframe Top Gun, Game of Thrones, Casper, Harry Potter, The Ring, X-Men, Blacklight Retribution, Back to the Future, Halo, Gears of War, The Fast and the Furious, Mario, Metroid, and Batman (did I miss any?) have entered the ball-cage-car arena.
And now, as part of Psyonix's DC Super Heroes pack, the Caped Crusader is set to return with both its Christian Bale-powered Dark Knight Tumbler, and its 1989 Tim Burton/Michael Keaton-style Batmobile.
Check 'em out:
Alongside the Bat, a host of familiar faces have been treated to decals, wheels and banners too. Here's the list in full:
Aquaman—Breakout Decal and Player Banner.
Batman—Paladin Decal and Player Banner.
Cyborg—Roadhog Decal and Player Banner.
DC—Player Banner (previously released in Collector’s Edition).
Flash—Wheels, Venom Decal, Player Banner, and Speed Force Boost (wheels and player banner previously released in Collector’s Edition).
Green Arrow—Hotshot Decal and Player Banner.
Green Lantern—Merc Decal and Player Banner.
Superman—Octane Decal and Player Banner.
Wonder Woman—Wheels, X-Devil Decal, and Player Banner.
Rocket League's Tournaments mode, which will allow players to create and join bracketed, single elimination tournaments, will be available next week for a brief beta test. Starting on Wednesday, February 21 at 10 am PST, players can opt in to the Tournaments beta branch on Steam and test it out until Friday, February 23 at 5 pm PST.
After the start time, you can join by right clicking Rocket League in your Steam library, hitting 'Properties,' navigating to the 'Betas' tab, and selecting the 'Tournaments Beta' branch. Once you've done that, the beta client will replace your standard, live client. You won't lose any of your player data, and though you won't be able to play ranked in the beta, deselecting the beta branch will revert you to the live version at any time.
Tournaments will be officially added in the Spring Update, sometime in March or April. We also learned recently that the existing alternative modes like Hoops and Snow Day may be getting their own ranked play at some point—though the idea is currently being discussed, not necessarily actively worked on. More of what's ahead can be seen in Psyonix's latest roadmap.
Update: As a Snow Day enthusiast I had to ask, and yep, Psyonix tells me we'll be able to set up tournaments with custom game modes during the beta.
The dream is alive. Recently, we posted about the small, passionate community playing one of Rocket League's alternate modes, Snow Day, and how its fans hope a ranked mode could attract more players. I traitorously return to the main Soccar mode now and then, but Snow Day is far and away the main attraction for me. I'd love to play it ranked, and earlier today, we learned that may actually happen.
In a Reddit post explaining some of Psyonix's update decisions, game director Corey Davis wrote that the dev team is "engaged in design discussions" about how to add "an experience equivalent to Competitive play for our existing alternate modes." That includes Snow Day, Hoops, Dropshot, and Rumble.
Alternate competitive modes—or the 'equivalent' to competitive, however that shakes out—are probably a good ways off if they happen at all, given that Psyonix is discussing, not building them at the moment. Just hearing that they're a possibility is great news, though (for me). I had just about written off the idea of ranked Snow Day in particular, given the small playerbase.
Davis also addressed the question of whether new alternate modes were in the works. Nope. Aside from the potential for ranked alternates, the bulk of Psyonix's focus is "the core Rocket League experience."
"While new game modes are a great way to bring players into Rocket League (both new and returning) and add variety for players of all skill levels, we see the majority of players migrating back to the original mode after a short period of time," reads the post. "While this can partly be attributed to the lack of Competitive Playlists and Season Rewards attached to these modes, we still see a clear demand for a continued focus on features that benefit the core Soccar experience that brought many of you to Rocket League over the last three years (and SARPBC [Rocket League's precursor] for seven years before that)."
As for what's actually on Rocket League's roadmap: The February content update goes out tomorrow with the beginning of Season 7, and Tournament Mode is coming sometime this spring with a beta coming sooner, along with other updates detailed here.
Personally, I'm waiting for season 1. Of competitive Snow Day. Fingers crossed.
Rocket League's long-awaited tournament mode will finally arrive in either March or April, developer Psyonix has said. Players will be able to test out these bracketed, single elimination tournaments for the first time next month as part of a Steam public beta.
The spring road map for Rocket League also revealed that March will see the arrival of new licensed premium DLC (previous licensed DLC has included tie-ups with the Fast & Furious franchise) as well as a spring event that will last into April.
Looking beyond April, the developer is still keen to introduce cross-platform parties before the end of the year so that you can play alongside your friends on consoles. It's also working on new arenas, a revamp of the progression system to "make XP relevant again", and—very vaguely—"new features" for the game.
You can read the full road map here, which includes plans for various quality-of-life improvements like item stacking (that will arrive in March or April, too). The next update, which will launch the next competitive season, is due on February 7.
It's common to see over 150,000 concurrent players in Rocket League with fewer than 1,000 of them searching for Snow Day, a mode that replaces Soccar's ball with a hockey puck. It's the least-played mode in Rocket League's entire roster of game types, just behind the newer Dropshot and Hoops modes. And that's a shame, because Snow Day is the best mode in Rocket League, at least if you ask the players who saved it from deletion back in 2015.
So why aren't more people playing my favorite mode? It's possible Snow Day is seen as a gimmick, which is how it was presented at first, reinforced by the lack of ranked play. But those who've tried it know that it's just as challenging as Soccar, if in different ways.
Playing on the wall is almost always the best way to get the puck to the front of the goal, a disorienting maneuver every time. Predicting the travel of the puck is also a challenge, with the ability to perform a "super shot" (aka ground pinch) by flipping onto the puck at just the right angle. These powerful shots can reach 200 kilometers per hour and the puck can easily travel around the entire arena without anyone touching it. It's fast, it's relentless, it's incredible.
The same aerial that would result in a 'nice little tip' in Soccar could painfully slide off the side of your car.
Rocket League's skill ceiling already seems limitless. Mastering the control of the ball in Soccar takes hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of practice, and most of those skills don't translate to Snow Day. The puck has a habit of flipping and bouncing around. But with enough experience, you can see a puck tumbling through the air and determine if it will land flat against the wall, making for an easy clear, or hit the wall on its edge and have a number of possible outcomes. Taking control and “settling down the puck” like real hockey players dealing with choppy ice is immensely satisfying and takes practice. Knowing how the ball bounces is one thing, but when the object you're playing with can also skip, flip and knuckle around from almost any contact, the amount of patience and observational acuity required increases.
Because of this, matches often come down to good wall play. A majority of the goals are scored by edging out your opponent on the wall to knock the puck in front of the goal for your teammate to tap in. That's not to say aerials aren't common in Snow Day, but because the puck is flat on two sides and often twirling about, the same aerial that would result in a 'nice little tip' in Soccar could painfully slide off the side of your car.
All of this makes Snow Day great, which is why its champions persist in their quest to make it just as popular as whacking a ball around.
The birth of the Rocket Hockey League
If you've given Snow Day a chance, you may have seen the 'RHL' tag in some player's names. They're part of a group called the Rocket Hockey League, the group that saved car hockey.
Snow Day was never intended to be a permanent mode for Rocket League, introduced instead as a sideshow in a holiday themed update in 2015. When Psyonix removed it, the community protested. Players, now members of the RHL, went to the Psyonix forums and Reddit to start a petition to demand its return. "We had no inkling that there would be this weirdly devoted sub-set of players that only play Snow Day," says game director Corey Davis in Noclip's Rocket League documentary. "It's a very hardcore couple thousand people. That's all they do."
I spoke to DankeyKyle, creator and head commissioner of the RHL, about how everything came together. “January 5th will forever be known as Hockey League Day, the day the people came together to save the hockey mode," he said. "In less than 24 hours after the uproar, Psyonix responded.” Snow Day was returned to Rocket League, but only in the form of private matches. One month later, Psyonix announced in a tweet that the mode was returning to playlists across all platforms. DankeyKyle pointed out at the time that the game mode read 'Hockey is Life.'
I think the competitive, ranked mode might be the key factor.
THE MUFFINMAN
In the time between the return of Snow Day as a private match mode and its return to the playlist, fans needed a way to get people together for matches, and so the Rocket Hockey League was born. The group started with a pre-season that eventually lead into a regular season of games. Other community members stepped in to help with the setup and figure out the rules. “The pre-season was a giant round robin”, says Petey B, another original member and commissioner. “Season two is a bit more free-form, where teams are more able to create their own schedules. We've been progressing our formats to create less headaches for the people who are sticking around and are willing to play.”
With a Discord server of over 1,000 members and Steam group of over 4,000, dedicated Twitch channels broadcasting tournaments and games with commentary, the RHL is still making a strong case for rocket hockey. Yet it still hasn't achieved its primary goal: ranked Snow Day.
I asked RHL commissioner THE MUFFINMAN why he thinks so few people play Snow Day to begin with, and the lack of ranked play is his main concern. “I think it’s similar to the other non-standard modes," he said. "I think the competitive, ranked mode might be the key factor.”
Adding competitive play to Snow Day could incentivize hardcore Rocket League players to give the mode a try, as well as up the stakes for its current fans. Though as THE MUFFINMAN suggests, if Snow Day gets a ranked mode, it's likely players of all the secondary modes will demand ranked play, too. But would that be so bad?
DankeyKyle is hopeful for a future even beyond ranked hockey. “Our final goal is to have the greater [Rocket League] community get as invested in Snow Day as they are in Soccar, with Psyonix backed RLCS Winter Games!”
I'm on board with DankeyKyle's dream—it's just up to Psyonix to decide how much time to put into its smaller Rocket League sub-communities, and whether they're worth growing. In the meantime, season two of the RHL is underway, and if you're interested in taking your ice skills to the next level, this is where you’ll find the dedicated players.
Over the holiday break, I did a bad thing. Instead of starting a long-ass PC game from the past year that I should probably have an opinion on by now, like Divinity: Original Sin 2, I just played Rocket League for hours and hours. This is a familiar problem at this point. I blame Psyonix's car football game for much of my current pile of shame, because it's too damned fun and easy to jump into.
This comes after an extended, 18-month break from the game. The secondary factor that keeps bringing me back to Rocket League, beyond the satisfaction of scoring a goal or making a great assist, is the behaviour of the other players. Its quick chat options ('Nice shot!', 'Siiick!', 'What a save!' and so on) feel like they're used sarcastically as much as they are used sincerely, and this is both awful and wonderful. Combined with an individual's play style, this helps me build up a more vivid picture of my opponents and teammates than I would typically get from a multiplayer game. This, it turns out, is fundamental to my enjoyment of Rocket League. I could turn text chat off, and I'd probably focus more on the match. But I can't.
Two-and-a-half years later, then, plenty of people are still irritating, and I'm delighted about that. It wouldn't be the same game without the personalities that surface in each match. Here are the annoying things that Rocket League players will never stop doing. Not all of them, obviously. Just some.
1. Teammates not going for the ball at kickoff when they're the closest to it
More and more people are buying Rocket League all the time—because it's one of the best multiplayer games ever made, obviously—and it means irritating habits from the earliest days of the game will never die. There's always a new generation of players willing to carry on the mistakes of their predecessors, and that includes knowing when to go for the ball at kickoff. How is this still confusing? Have a quick look around. If the only other player on your team is behind you, guarding the goal, maybe you should go for the first touch instead of reversing into your teammate, ramming them back into your goal, then watching helplessly as the ball sails into the right-hand corner.
It's particularly irritating when you see Semi Pro or Pro-level players doing this. Haven't you learned how the hell this game works by now?
2. Being bad in the air
I've never gotten close to mastering wall jumping and boost to play effectively in the air, but I've made my peace with that. I feel it's far more offensive to make other players watch while you play in the air badly, however. Maybe these players are just practicing, but can't you do that with bots instead of doing it on my time? Watching a player dribble up the wall, then try and double tap the ball into the goal, only to flop off the side of the arena and land upside down is just the worst, because the whole ordeal feels like it takes forever. Everyone else is just parked, looking up, (probably) thinking, 'when's this arse going to finish dicking about and get on with it?'
If you're actually good in the air, I just look up in impressed disappointment, like a doomed species that suddenly realises it's about to be replaced by a superior one.
3. Congratulating their own goals/passes because you didn't
There are some needy teammates out there in Rocket League, who demand validation for every little thing they do. Is it not enough to make a good assist, setting up an amazing goal? Sometimes, it isn't, and these players need to congratulate themselves in quick chat as if to suggest you should've been doing it anyway. 'Great pass! Nice shot!' they tell themselves. It's not like you've given me a kidney, pal. I owe you nothing. Everyone wants a medal for turning up, these days.
4. Not skipping replays
I don't care how good a goal is in Rocket League, whether you're on my team or the opposing team—almost three years later, I don't need to watch it again. Alright, unless it's the winner. Or unless it's such a crazy fluke that all of us find it funny, as evidenced by the reaction in the group chat. Some people still make you watch replays to try and get you to quit early in Rocket League, and perhaps foolishly, I thought the community might eventually grow out of doing that.
Then, when you score a goal, you feel obliged to make them watch your entire replay in retaliation, savouring it as they immediately skip. Then they make you watch their replay again. Then you make them watch yours, because hey, they started it! And on this goes, until the game is over, and everyone's faith in humanity is slightly damaged.
5. Going off to fetch boost from miles away when the ball and all the opposing players are in our half, stupid
When you've conceded a goal from a decent play in Rocket League, you often wonder, what the hell happened to my teammate(s) during that sequence of events? In the replay, you spin the camera around and learn that they were in the other half of the pitch, casually collecting boost at 30mph while you were the only one defending. Yesterday, I played a game where at kickoff, both players on the opposing team drove to the nearest corners to collect boost while I nudged the ball straight into the net on first touch. It didn't take long for one of them to quit.
You can't run from your poor decisions in Rocket League, pal. They'll catch up to you eventually.
It's been a bumper year (apologies) for Rocket League, and now more than 38 million people are playing football on wheels. But developer Psyonix knows there's still a long road ahead, and has released details of how the game will change in 2018, with a major focus on online performance improvements.
The developer says it's going to start acting on player concerns about wonky game servers, firstly by adding a tool that makes it easier to understand and report bad connections.
"We’ll be rolling out improved connection quality status information in the game client in 2018 that will tell you if you’re experiencing packet loss, latency variance, or legitimate game server performance issues," it said. "We’re looking into how we can allow the community to report servers they think are performing poorly to help us identify and resolve problems more quickly."
So, it sounds like the developer doesn't yet have all the answers—but getting more concrete information on what's going wrong could be the first step. It's also planning to add new servers to the matchmaking system, like US-Central, which should help some players without affecting the quality of West or East coast servers.
A Tournament Mode is definitely inbound and a beta will start early next year, which is later than the team initially hoped. It also plans to "revamp the progression system to make XP meaningful again", which means you'll unlock banners, titles, and free Decryptors as you level up.
Lastly, cross-platform play is definitely incoming next year, following a series of successful Steam server tests this year. "We’ll begin rolling it out to all of our players sometime next year," Psyonix said.
For the full blog post, click here. What would you like to see added to Rocket League in 2018?
Sports games come in many shapes and sizes. Football Manager and Rocket League have almost nothing in common, but they’re both undeniably sports games. Meanwhile Fifa has added a story driven campaign, and Pyre is a fantasy RPG that plays like a sport.
To try and help, I’ve broken this list down into four broad categories. Sports Simulations, which attempt to realistically depict a sport, Sports Management games (self explanatory), Arcade Sports, which depict a stylised version of a real sport, and Fantasy Sports, which are wholly invented.
There’s obviously a lot of crossover, since even Rocket League is loosely based on football, but hopefully this will help you tell your QWOPs from your Fifas.
SPORTS SIMS
Fifa 2018
Developer: EA SportsRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Official site
EA's annual football series is on a high right now, with the addition of a surprisingly compelling single player story mode. Unlike PES, Fifa's strength is in a Xavi-esque short, quick passing game. If you’re looking to play online, Fifa will be your football sim of choice, as a strong and healthy online community ensures it's always easy to find a game.
PES 2018
Developer: KonamiRelease Date: Sep 2017Link:Official site
While Fifa will draw in those interested in the single player story or online multiplayer, PES is my preference for local multiplayer, or when I want to sink into the signature Master League. The two games also play slightly differently, with PES leaning more towards long passes and lofted through balls for a faster paced, more frenetic game.
Basketball is one of the few annual sports franchises not dominated by EA, and 2K's NBA series is one of the few that releases on PC. 2018's installment confused people by adding a strange MMO-esque hub called The Neighbourhood, but what really matters is that the slamming and jamming is as strong as ever.
MANAGEMENT GAMES
Football Manager 2018
Developer: Sports InteractiveRelease Date: Nov 2017Link:Official site
It’s hard to overrstate the enormity of Football Manager. It is consistently one of the most popular games on Steam, its scouting network rivals real life clubs and once a player received an international call up from the wrong country because of it. It's also incredibly absorbing and fun, even more so since they added the streamlined variant Football Manager Touch. Play it with care: it is all-consuming.
Out of the Park Baseball 18
Developer: Out of the Park DevelopmentsRelease Date: Mar 2017Link:Official site
It's strange how few other sports have a Football Manager equivalent, but understandable that the highly stat-driven baseball is one of those that does. Out of the Park Baseball doesn't seem to change that much from year to year, but the underlying game remains an engrossing way to live out your Moneyball fantasies.
Motorsport Manager
Developer: Playsport GamesRelease Date: Nov 2016Link: Official site
Another sensible sport to adapt into a management game, Motorsport Manager is half about the strategy, half about the cars. Between races you’ll spend time improving and upgrading your vehicle, then make strategic calls like what tires to use and when to make a pit stop, but all without having to bother getting your hands dirty actually steering the thing.
ARCADE SPORTS
Sensible World of Soccer
Developer: Sensible SoftwareRelease Date: Jan 1996Link:GOG
"I don’t like football but I did enjoy Sensible Soccer" is a thing I’ve been told by more 40-year-old game journalists than I care to count. By stripping the sport down to its essentials, SWOS finds a purity in the tick tock of precision passes. GOG only stocks Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, so expect to be stuck in the days of David Seaman and Ian Wright.
Super Arcade Football
Developer: Out of the BitRelease Date: Early AccessLink: Official site
Super Arcade Football is built on the classic top down approach of Sensible Soccer but with some more modern touches, the most impressive being a physics defying slow motion aftertouch shot. Unlike SWOS it also works online, making it much easier to get a game against a human.
QWOP
Developer: Bennett Foddy Release Date: Nov 2008 Link: Official site
QWOP is, in many ways, the anti-sports game. Most sports games are about using easy, accessible controls to allow anyone to simulate being a peak athlete. QWOP on the other hand uses an overly complicated control scheme to make the relatively simple act of running a 110m hurdles (yes there are hurdles, most people don’t make it far enough to realise that) astonishingly difficult and hilarious. It’s the Eddie the Eagle of sports games.
Fire Pro Wrestler
Developer: Spike ChunsoftRelease Date: Early AccessLink:Steam
Is wrestling a sport? According to Vince McMahon it’s 'sports entertainment', which is close enough for this list. Unlike the awful official WWE games, Fire Pro Wrestling World leans into the fact that wrestling is a performance, subtly pushing players to put on an entertaining match, rather than just trying to win. That, coupled with its astonishing Steam Workshop-supported character creation makes it unique among wrestling games.
OlliOlli's great success is in taking all the fun of older skating games like Tony Hawk and distilling them down to two dimensions. The simplicity of OlliOlli's side on approach makes it easier to learn a track while constantly embellishing your performance with tricks and flourishes.
Desert Golfing
Developer: Captain GamesRelease Date: Aug 2014Link: Official site
I was actually surprised to find viral mobile hit Desert Golfing is available on PC, but it is, via the Windows Store (remember that?). It's a strange, minimalist game that can lulls you into an almost zen mindset. Each hole achieves a lot with a simple geometric layout. Crucially, there is no going back, so every wasted stroke is there forever.
Tennes
Developer: Jan Willem NijmanRelease Date: Nov 2012Link: Official site
Originally a bonus game for people who backed the SportsFriends Kickstarter, Tennnes is a simplified tennis game with a flexible approach to rules. The game does not mind if, for example, you jump over the net and play on the other side of the court. If you liked SportsFriends, you'll like this.
FANTASY SPORTS
Rocket League
Developer: PsyonixRelease Date: Jul 2015Link:Official site
I've had Rocket League installed on my PC for nearly two years now, and I still find myself jumping in for a quick 15 minute game every couple of weeks. The premise is simple: it’s football with rocket powered cars. What makes it work is the strange physics: the ball seems to be moving almost in slow motion, resulting in great slapstick comedy and much rage on the part of PC Gamer editor Sam Roberts.
SportsFriends
Developer: De Gute FabrikRelease Date: Dec 2014Link:Official site
SportsFriends is a bundle of local multiplayer indie games loosely themed around sports. Hokra is a very fast, minimalist ice hockey game, BariBariBall is a blend of Super Smash Bros and volleyball, Super Pole Riders is a strange pole vaulter jousting game and Johan Sebastian Joust is a kind of full contact musical chairs played with motion controllers. What they have in common is that they’re all a amazing fun with a group of friends.
Bloodbowl 2
Developer: Cyanide ReleaseDate: Sep 2015Link:Official site
The Blood Bowl board game is as old as I am, which is testament to its enduring appeal. It is simultaneously one of the most frustrating and entertaining games I've ever played. Dice rolls are required for everything, meaning sometimes players fall over and die because they ran too fast. The digital port is solid enough, but the real charm lies in the time tested rules.
Frozen Cortex
Developer: Mode7Release Date: Feb 2015Link:Official site
Frozen Synapse's trademark interpretation of turn-based combat, where both sides plan their moves and execute them simultaneously, turns out to translate really well into sports. A paired down version of American Football featuring big stompy robots on a small pitch, Frozen Cortex excels at replicating the execution of a single play, but lacks the back and forth of larger, more fluid sports.
Pyre
Developer: Supergiant GamesRelease Date: Jul 2017Link:Official site
Pyre is essentially an RPG with a sport instead of random battles. The story and atmosphere are the kind of strong stuff you'd expect from SuperGiant (who also made Bastion and Transistor). The sport itself can end up a little one dimensional, as attacking players can’t move without the ball, there's little point in the passing game. Still, the way in which the fiction and the sport combine is a unique delight.
Loot boxes, which burst open to reveal randomized rewards in games, don't exist because they're good for game design. They exist because the industry wondered: how do we charge each player the maximum amount they're willing to spend for as long as we can keep them spending? The answer already existed in a model proven successful decades ago by baseball and Magic: The Gathering cards.
In his 2013 book, Uncertainty in Games, Greg Costikyan describes the success of Magic's card packs: "...When you purchase and open a booster pack, you are always uncertain what you will obtain—and may experience delight at finding a new card that works well with others you have, or disappointment at receiving cards that duplicate ones you already have, or worse, quintuplicate them—meaning you already have the maximum of this card you can use in a single deck. This is, of course, one reason Magic's business model is so effective: there's always a temptation to buy more cards, and players can be induced, in essence, to spend the maximum amount they are comfortable spending on their game, whether that be a few dollars or a few thousand."
Like Magic packs, loot boxes turn the experience of getting stuff, rather than the stuff itself, into what's for sale, and encourage us to keep chasing the delight of getting what we want. They 'work' because they offer an uncertain outcome, and uncertainty is a component of good games, whether it results in a botched saving throw in D&D or a lucky bounce in Rocket League. A box which may or may not contain something rare is not sinful on its own—it's fun. It's adding money to the mix that's the problem.
I appreciate that Rocket League, CS:GO, Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, and other games only offer cosmetic items in loot boxes, and Overwatch in particular is fairly inoffensive as you can work toward skins without purchasing anything but the game. The way Star Wars Battlefront 2 implemented loot boxes, however, shows that the biggest companies are testing the waters: how much can we put in these things? An entire multiplayer shooter's library of upgrades? They tried.
When a progression system is wrapped up in loot boxes which can be purchased with real money, it isn't a fun progression system, practically by definition. If you've made something players can pay to skip, then you've made something worth paying to skip. With Battlefront 2's premium currency temporarily removed, this is hilariously obvious. There is currently no reason for Credits, the non-purchasable currency, to exist, as their only purpose is to abstract achievement so that it can be spent like the premium money, turning 'achievement' into 'grind,' a paycheck rather than a trophy. Not fun. Loot boxes are surely also why generic upgrades can't be applied to multiple classes, and why there's an overcomplicated crafting system—there had to be something to buy even after 20 hours of play. Also not fun.
Bad game design which transparently exists to encourage spending is frustrating, especially in a game that already costs $60. What may be worse, though, is that by pairing cash and games of chance, EA and other big publishers are endangering every developer by inviting the scrutiny of politicians.
Are loot boxes gambling?
Buying loot boxes, like gambling in a casino, can potentially be addictive.
Buying loot boxes, like gambling in a casino, can potentially be addictive. "We know that the dopamine system, which is targeted by drugs of abuse, is also very interested in unpredictable rewards," said Dr. Luke Clark, director at the Center for Gambling Research at the University of British Columbia, in a recent interview with PC Gamer. "Dopamine cells are most active when there is maximum uncertainty, and the dopamine system responds more to an uncertain reward than the same reward delivered on a predictable basis."
Yet loot boxes are not legally considered gambling in the US and elsewhere, at least according to precedent. A series of 1996 lawsuits brought against baseball card manufacturers under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claimed that limited-run "chase cards"—rare, valuable cards that might appear in a pack—constitute an illegal lottery. The suits were not successful. A similar suit against Nintendo in 1999, which claimed that Pokemon cards constituted gambling, was also dismissed.
Last year, The Washington State Gambling Commission ordered Valve to "take whatever actions are necessary" to put an end to third-party CS:GO skin gambling sites, where players could bet valuable gun skins on the outcomes of esports matches, among other things. The Gambling Commission did not, however, take aim at the practice of delivering skins randomly. It is seemingly legal to sell boxes—physical or digital—with unknown contents, some more valuable to collectors than others. It's a practice familiar to toy collectors, sometimes called 'blind boxes.'
Above: Hell.
It's tempting to read recent anti-loot box statements from politicians as a win, but legislators getting involved in game design is uncomfortable.
What's the legal difference between loot boxes and roulette? Mainly, it's that in a casino I put down money hoping for it to return to me, whereas when I buy a key for a Rocket League crate I know the money is spent—the gamble is whether or not I'll be satisfied with my purchase. That is an important distinction. However, if the contents of a loot box can be sold for a cash profit, which most can be through sanctioned marketplaces or EULA-defying grey markets, the distinction blurs. Still, unlike gambling, your possible reward is never zero, and the in-game items can't be turned in to the publisher like gambling chips for cash. Their value entirely depends on the value collectors assign them. So, it's different, but is it different enough?
While the 1996 lawsuits against baseball card manufacturers alleged that it was not different enough and failed, that doesn't mean legislators will never successfully amend the law. It's unlikely to change, but it's still up for debate. Ebay's policy, for instance, plays it safe by requiring the contents of 'grab bags' to be listed in order to avoid sales which might constitute illegal lotteries in some states. In reality, though, I was easily able to find multiple listings for 'surprise boxes.' Whether they are or aren't lotteries by law is unclear. Do we want them to be?
Whether they are or aren't lotteries by law is unclear. Do we want them to be?
It's tempting to read recent anti-loot box statements from politicians as a win—we don't like loot boxes, and they're saying they'll get rid of them—but legislators getting involved in game design is concerning. A ban on charging for uncertain rewards would end Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering, and all 'blind boxes' and 'grab bags' outright—you would not be able to buy anything without knowing its exact contents, or perhaps at least their value—and lawmakers wouldn't necessarily stop there. It could be just the in they need to form government-run ratings boards for games, which I oppose completely.
It's not far fetched. In 2005, US Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Tim Johnson, and Evan Bayh sponsored the Family Entertainment Protection Act, which would have put the ESRB under federal observation and fined stores which sold Mature games to kids under 17. In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted that videogame violence "must be stopped." Nothing has come of these intentions to regulate the sale of games, but if certain game systems were deemed gambling, you can be sure that 'the danger to our kids' would become a standard talking point again.
Meanwhile, mobile games haven't needed the element of chance to succeed in selling premium currencies. The legality of Clash of Clans-like schemes (premium currencies that directly translate to boosts and bonuses and power) isn't in dispute. So, if loot boxes were declared illegal, we'd get a small victory in pushing game publishers away from design we don't like, but not necessarily toward design we do, at the expense of increasing government scrutiny which could harm small developers who have no part in this.
As much as I want to stick it to corporations, a legal solution is worrisome. And given the precedent, it's also unlikely to succeed. We're talking about defining Magic: The Gathering and baseball cards as illegal racketeering, an accusation they've weathered successfully for years.
Above: Hell.
What to do
They botched one of their biggest launches of the year, ate a bunch of negative press, and could've avoided it all.
The dopamine rush described by Dr. Clark is real, and its easy to see how loot boxes could get children and people who are prone to addiction to overspend. For that and many other reasons, I'd love to get rid of them, if not by forcing indie game developers to submit their games to their state's gambling control board for inspection. Frustratingly, though, I doubt the catalyst for change will be reduced profits.
The truth is that loot boxes are fun to open. I've purchased keys for Rocket League crates—because I must have the coolest car—and spending $10 here and there hasn't left me with regrets. Many probably feel the same way, so I'm doubtful that 'vote with your wallet' is going to force meaningful change. When they're relatively inoffensive, people are going to keep buying loot boxes, and blaming individual players pointlessly sets us against each other, instead of the people actually responsible: exorbitantly-paid executives and board members.
All I can recommend for now is that we keep calling out obnoxious implementations of loot boxes. We may not like what we get when Battlefront 2's premium currency returns, but that EA removed it the day before launch shows that player criticism had a significant effect. They botched one of their biggest launches of the year, ate a bunch of negative press, and could've avoided it all. Whether they end up making money on Battlefront 2 anyway, or losing money, they may think twice about the nature of their in-game purchases next time.
Inside the industry, I don't expect any individual to risk their job by publicly criticizing their bosses—we recently spoke to insiders about loot boxes, and they all asked to remain anonymous—though I can't imagine the average game developer employee loves designing simulated slot machines. On that note, there's a lot of work to do on the industry that, while seemingly unrelated, would help. Namely, an end to reliance on temporary contractors, crunch, and high turnover, and reasonable profit expectations that don't require every game to pull in half-a-billion dollars per year in microtransactions.
Above: What buying currency in Battlefront 2 looked like, before it was removed.
I do think it's understandable that publishers want to earn revenue from existing owners if they're providing a service. Servers cost money. But it feels pretty obvious that they've slowly been working toward something they knew we didn't want, hoping that if they turned up the heat gradually—first pre-order bonuses, then microtransactions, 'games as a service,' and finally cribbing the MTG model—we wouldn't notice that the system is designed to encourage overspending on items.
Of course we noticed, and so have legislators, reigniting the 'gambling for children' collectable card game debates from the '90s. Collectible card games managed to slip away from the controversy, but now that it's back, the games industry has to reckon with the ethics of how it applies game systems to monetization, as well as the way it produces games and the profits they're expected to make. If they don't back off, at least a little—say, by only putting cosmetic items in boxes and always providing an alternative way to get them—someone else might make a decision for them.
