Analysis of dark patterns in League of Legends and Star Wars:Battlefront II with the usage of Loot Boxes

The following analysis was done originally as an assignment for the Introduction to Game Research course at University of Gothenburg, first section fall 2019.

The Darkness of a game design and its consequences revealed:

Analysis of dark patterns in League of Legends and Star Wars:Battlefront II with the usage of Loot Boxes

In some video games there are practices that are ethically questionable, which makes them go against what the player expects from the games. These practices of going against the player are called Dark Patters (Staffan Björk). As they are ethically questionable, I think it is good to identify (reveal) some of these patterns in games, which are currently very much played, and also reveal their current consequences. In specific, my analysis is going to consist in how League of Legends (RIOT games, 2009) and Star Wars: Battlefront II (Electronic Arts, 2017) have some characteristis that could mean that they are ussing the Grinding, Monetized Rivalries  and Pay to Skip dark patterns (Staffan Björk). It is worth to mention that capabilities like purchaising characer customes and skins are not consider, in this analysis, as dark patterns since they are purelly optional and does not affect the way the game is intended to play. Furthermore, because both games share the controversial feature called Loot Boxes, I am going to discuss further into that as consecuences of the using of the previously mentioned dark patterns.

Dark in League of Legends

League of legends is a game that consists in two teams playing, as champion characters, against each other in diferent possible modes, which the most popular is called “SUMMONER’S RIFT” (Game Info, n.d.), with different rules but same mechanics: clic or aim:select where the character is going to move; attack: when a character is near an enemy it starts to attack with its particular abilities; kill: when a character is attacked it could die and retrieve gold,in gameplay currency, to the player who killed it; get gold: once an enemy is killed, player gets more in gameplay currency; and upgrade: with in game currency players can upgrade its character(chapion) so it would increase its abilities. Furthermore, the game have a virtual economy with two types of currency, which are not part of the gameplay currency: Blue essence(BE), which can increase while playing; and Riot Points(RP), which can be added by using real money(dollars, kronas, euros, etc) (Game Info, n.d.).

Moreover, in order to have new skills, get into higer ranks , and have the chance to use(unlock)  better skilled champios players need to buy Experience Boosts(enable players to exange currency to more experience points),  Rune Pages(game element that enables the players to customize skills) and Champios (Pickard, 2019), which can be interpreted as examples of Pay to Skip and Grinding. Pay to Skip is a pattern in which  players must pay in order to make a progress in the game and Griding is the pattern that make players to "performing repetitive and tedious tasks in order to make progress in a game" (Staffan Björk). These two patterns can be identified in League of Legends since players must play many times in order to increase the BE currency so they could  unlock Champios or get more Rune Pages, yet they could use real money in exchange of RP so that they could skyp the play time to get Champions and Rune Pages.  

Dark in Battlefront II

On the other hand, Star Wars: Battlefront II(SWBFII) is a first person shooter game with an online play mode, which is the most popular feature, nontheless it is very controversial since it has loot boxes for online gaming (GameSpot, 2017). Its mechanics (Sicart, 2008) are shoot: shoot an enemy to generate damage; sneak out: slip away from enemies; use star card: upgrade on character’s abilities such as weapons capabilities, tempral use of weapons, use of jetpack, etc; change weapon: a player can change the weapon that its character is using. The star cards are divided in two types: bust cards, which enhance stats like expertice, health, and damage, and ability cards, which give the player weapons and artillery objects like granates (GameSpot, 2017). Likewise, the weapons that a player can use on the game have four different performance features: Cooling Power, Range, Rate of Fire and Damage, which means that if a player happens to have a great performanced wepon, he could kill easily another characer with a low performed weapon (GameSpot, 2017). As a result, players can kill more characters, in a game match, with better equipment(star cards) and a high performance weapon.

In order to a player to use use a high performance weapon the player must complete several goals in the game by playing various matches (How to unlock new weapons? SW Battlefront 2 Guide, n.d.), and to get more star cards the players had to buy loot boxes, in the early days that the game was published (Gilbert, 2018). A weapon, in SWBFII, is unluckable by completing goals related to kills on te game, which means that the more performance a weapons has, the more kills the player should have, therefore repeating the action in various matches untill completing the required goal. By completing the number of deaths required the game resembles Grinding.

Furthermore, back when the game was first released, if a player wanted to have more star cards , he could buy Loot Boxes which are extremely controversial(datailed in 3) or by using Krafting points. Kafting points is one of the SWBFII’s currency which can be owned by playing the compaing mode and playing matches (GameSpot, 2017), which again resembles Grinding by repeting the same gameplay. In the case of Loot Boxes, they are pacakges with random items , generally three items inside them, which could contain Star Cards with different skill upgrades, so if a player bough a box that contains a very good Star Card, with great upgrades,in the early life of SWBFII, then this beahavior could be described as “Pay to Win” (Moshirnia, 2019), which is clasified as Monetized Rivalries pattern, so it created a great controversy and the start of a debate about weather or not to consider loot boxes as gambling since the players could obtain great star cards as well as really bad ones which can caouse remorse (Hruska, 2017). It is worth to mention that this behavior was so controversial, so EA and DICE had to change several times the Loot Boxes feature (Workman, 2018).

Are Loot Boxes bad for players and should they be legal ?

While it is true that several features of the aforementioned games belong to the category of dark patterns, Loot Boxes have caused a lot of controversy nowadays. Loot Boxes are a topic of discussion because they are consider a form of gambling, arrise the concern that children are expose to gamling, and various countries started to ban them.

Loot Boses are consider gambling because they have unsertain results and provoque delivery behaviors to its players (Moshirnia, 2019). Loot Boxes rely on the Skinner Box principle, which is that “the unsertain but tantalizingly close reward enlist constant attempts”( Moshirnia, 2019). Which, according to Moshirnia, make loot box purchasers act like apthological gamblers since they present an initial rush when they are opening a loot box , “and then a wage of regret and shame”( Moshirnia, 2019). Also, this behavior is well known by developers, because they create expectation animations and music(Child Commision, 2019). However, legally they are not considered gambling in many countries as there are deffinition issues, as Moshirna noted:

“Loot boxes are unlikely to meet the legal requirements of gambling on account of two factors: usersare guaranteed to receive at least one item and all items offered have not tangible value”( Moshirnia, 2019).

Furthermore, the fact that loot boxes are considered as gambling, arrice the concern to protect underage customers who could spend thousands of dollars to gain a desire item(Moshirnia, 2019). According to the Children’s Commisioner for England, some childen expend over 300 british pounds in microtransactions each year in online games because of social preasure and inluece from famous Youtubers. And some games that promote microtransactions use loot boxes which lack guaranteed reward that can leave children with the feeling of having wasted their money(Children’s Commisioner, 2019).

As a consequence of similar points as the ones mentioned earlier, many countries started banning loot boxes. For example Belgium and Netherlands banned loot boxes for vieogames, because they are consider as gambling (Arif, 2018). Furthermore, Children’s Commissioner for England is asking for chaging the english gambling law so that loot boxes can be considered as a way of gambling because of recent reports(Children’s Commisioner, 2019) which reveals children’s gambling fears.

Conclusion

Some video games have features that resemble to dark patterns in their design which lead to a bad user experience. An example of these are loot boxes which are very controversial since they can be seen as gambling. However, the problem of this view is that children is exposed to games with loot boxes, which rise concern to certain orzanizations as the Children’s Commissionerof England. Therefore, some countries have banned the use of loot boxes in video games. 

References

Arif, S. (2018, April 25). Belgium Joins the Netherlands in Ruling That Declares Some Loot Boxes Illegal. Retrieved from IGN Nordic: https://nordic.ign.com/counter-strike-global-offensive/13945/news/belgium-joins-the-netherlands-in-ruling-that-declares-some-loot-boxes-illegal

children's commissioner for England. (2019). Gaming the System. London: Revealing Reality.

Electronic Arts. (2017). Star Wars: Battle Front II.

Game Info. (n.d.). Retrieved from League of Legends: https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/

Gameplay Design Patterns. (n.d.). Retrieved from Category:Patterns: http://virt10.itu.chalmers.se/index.php?title=Category:Patterns&pageuntil=First-Person+Views#mw-pages

GameSpot. (2017, November 23). Star Wars Battlefront 2's Loot Box Controversy Explained. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVn89eFMh6Q

Gilbert, B. (2018, March 16). The latest major 'Star Wars' game finally dropped its most controversial aspect — but it may be too late. Retrieved from Busines Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-battlefront-2-drops-loot-boxes-2018-3?r=US&IR=T

How to unlock new weapons? SW Battlefront 2 Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved from GamePressure.com: https://guides.gamepressure.com/star_wars_battlefront_2/guide.asp?ID=42451

Hruska, J. (2017, November 27). Battlefront II Loot Crates Declared Gambling, Investigated in Hawaii. Retrieved from Extreme Tech: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/259503-battlefront-ii-loot-crates-declared-gambling-belgium-attacked-hawaii

Moshirnia, A. (2019). Precious and Worthless: A Comparative Perspective on Loot Boxes and Gambling. Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology.

Pickard, J. (2019, January 23). League of Legends: How to get more rune pages. Retrieved from Metabomb: https://www.metabomb.net/leagueoflegends/gameplay-guides/league-of-legends-how-to-get-rune-pages-guide-2

Porter, M. (2017, Decemer 29). League of Legends: the best and worst champions right now... which champs have the highest win rate, and which ones are banned the most in ranked? Retrieved from Mail Online: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/esports/article-5220621/Best-LoL-champions-highest-win-rate-banned.html

RIOT games. (2009). League Of Legends.

Riot Points. (n.d.). Retrieved from League of Legends Wiki: https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Riot_Points

Sicart. (2008, December). Defining Game Mechanics. Retrieved from Game Studies: http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart

Staffan Björk, J. P. (n.d.). Dark Patterns in the Design of Games. Retrieved from http://www.fdg2013.org/program/papers/paper06_zagal_etal.pdf

Workman, R. (2018, February 8). Star Wars: Battlefront II Players Apparently Getting Free Crates From EA DICE. Retrieved from comicbook: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/02/09/star-wars-battlefront-ii-free-loot-boxes/