EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

It's my strong opinion that the whole loot box phenomenon makes games as a whole worse.

For me, it's not the gambling aspects of it, per se. I am an avid Magic: the Gathering player and never decried the way its loot boxes (boosters) work. It's the fact that, the way these boxes have been handled by many games noticeably warps the design goals of the game from "make an engaging experience" to "motivate the player to buy more loot boxes".

What I mean is that many modern games have loot boxes or microtransactions permeating its design to such a degree that most features seem planned around how they motivate players to spend more money in-game.

This has been at its worst in mobile games, but there are plenty of console and PC titles with this issue as well. It's even gotten so far that big titles with no microtransactions include a heavy focus on loot boxes which can only be gained as quest rewards or bought using in-game currency (Horizon Zero Dawn comes to mind).

I really don't like it. I get no joy from wading through mountains of useless items in the hope of finding that one rare gem I actually want. This applies to ordinary loot in RPGs as well. So, seeing that the global trend has been for games to evolve in this direction has been very frustrating for me. As such, this recent pushback - both these legal actions as well as the player backlash of recent loot box controversies - have been very interesting developments which I hope will lead to market-wide improvements in overall game design.

To elaborate: I do not mind microtransactions in general. There are a few games which have plenty of ways to spend real money in-game but which do not bother me (Fortnite, Elder Scrolls Online). The key difference, here, is that those are games in which the core game loop does not heavily incentivize you to spend money and where in-game transactions will mainly get you cosmetic content or additional story campaigns.

I would like to see loot boxes out of games for players under 18. Loot boxes are not a real part of the game anyway, they are a way for the publisher add the types of subconscious psychological rewards to “increase engagement” that are now rightfully criticized in platforms like Facebook.