Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Completely forgot that came out yesterday. Definitely need to give it a try at some point. And I agree; it's nice to see more things connecting the movie to the game. What I really want though is confirmation on The lack of lore in the hunts is honestly rather disappointing overall. It was the perfect place to flesh the world out a bit more. :<

In recent news, Belgian government is investigating Electronic Arts' use of in-game "loot box" mechanics in Star Wars Battlefront II EA, citing that it may indeed be a form of gambling.

True, but EA's elevated it to a whole new level of scumbag ***. It's been all over the place, and EA's response on the BF2 subreddit became the most downvoted comment in the history of Reddit.

Nothing like some afternoon coffee spiked with Reese's peanut butter cup creamer. Mmmm, yummy.

A Skinner Box, for those unfamiliar with the term.

In Star Wars Battlefront II EA, the players are the rat, the switch is the loot box or a slot machine, the rat food or payout/ digital items are the reward the rat or player gets when using the switch. The rat wants more food, so it keeps working the switch to get more food. In some variants of Skinner Boxes, scientists are able to switch out the food the rats get and offer a wider, randomized variety of treats to the rats. The rats in such boxes have more incentive to keep working the switch because they might want one specific type of treat to come up, much like a person sitting at a slot machine or feeding money into a cash shop for loot boxes. In psychological terms, what a Skinner Box is doing, is enforcing a mental state called Operant Conditioning. It's conditioning the rat, or the person, to perform a set task in order to achieve a goal. In the case of people, the task is feeding money into a coin slot or a cash shop to get a jackpot or a good haul from a loot box. The person has no control aside from making a conscious decision to no longer feed money into the slot or the shop, as to whether or not the next slot machine arm pull results in a jackpot or you get a very nice reward from a loot box.

Now, because a loot box system is much like a slot machine or Skinner Box, loot boxes may be subject to similar regulations that slot machines face depending on what the Belgian government finds and if other countries follow suit in regulating online loot boxes.