Fashionable free-to-play cellular recreation Brawl Stars is doing one thing a bit completely different. In an period the place it appears each recreation is attempting to nickel and dime you with increasingly stuff to purchase, as an alternative it’s eradicating loot bins and all random rewards totally from the sport. It’s yet one more signal that loot bins are more likely to turn out to be a relic of the previous as lawmakers and gamers push again on the random rewards. However that doesn’t imply Brawl Stars gamers are universally glad about their removing.
Launched in 2019 for telephones and tablets, Brawl Stars blended cute characters with MOBA-like gameplay and a few battle royale components. The tip consequence was a enjoyable top-down aggressive motion recreation that I performed for weeks and weeks. However since I ended enjoying, hundreds of thousands have continued to take pleasure in it: Brawl Stars has remodeled a billion {dollars} in revenue for Supercell and nonetheless has an energetic participant base and neighborhood. Now, Supercell has eliminated all loot bins from the sport, and response to the change is oddly blended.
Introduced in a Brawl Discuss video posted final week, Supercell’s newest replace to Brawl Stars has eliminated all random rewards from the sport. These bins had been primarily used to unlock new characters within the recreation. Since its launch three years in the past, Brawl Stars has closely featured loot bins as a part of its rewards. However with yesterday’s replace, that’s not the case.
“No extra possibilities, no extra random rewards, and no extra enjoying the guessing recreation if you unlock Brawlers,” stated the sport’s lead designer Frank Keienburg in Supercell’s Brawl Discuss video.
Yesterday, as a part of this replace, all unclaimed bins had been routinely opened and all of the rewards got to gamers accordingly. Shifting ahead, Keienburg and Supercell say that every one rewards—together with its battle passes—might be changed with “completely different, deterministic rewards, a few of that are new to the sport.” Now, gamers have a brand new battle pass-like characteristic, The Starr Street, which lets them unlock all characters totally free by way of grinding. Gamers can now simply purchase any brawler they need with gems, as an alternative of randomly shopping for dozens of loot bins to possibly get a selected hero.
“We’re making this variation for just a few causes,” continued Keienburg. “Primarily, shifting away from possibilities and likelihood, which can make issues extra honest and predictable for you. It additionally offers you clear and thrilling targets each time you play the sport.”
In fact, there’s additionally the chance that Supercell and different devs are eradicating loot bins as numerous governments world wide start cracking down on them with proposed new legal guidelines and laws.
Whereas I believe eradicating loot bins is an efficient factor and one thing value celebrating—particularly as cellular video games proceed to be a few of the worst offenders with even good video games like Marvel Snap together with predatory purchases of over $100 or extra—the neighborhood response is way much less constructive. Whereas some gamers appear glad in regards to the removing of random reward crates, others expressed disappointment. The feedback on the Brawl Discuss video has gamers rallying towards the devs and demanding bins return to Brawl Stars.
Why? For some evidently the joy of a loot field outweighed the frustration that usually accompanies them. Others urged they now have little curiosity in enjoying the sport since random rewards are being eliminated. (I believe a few of these folks have to cease and assume in the event that they actually like Brawl Stars or identical to pulling a digital lever on a slot machine…) We noticed one thing just like this occur with Overwatch 2’s launch, the place some gamers had been indignant on the removing of loot bins and demanded they be returned to the sport. And whereas I agree that development in Overwatch 2 sucks for the time being, I’d somewhat Blizzard determine a technique to repair that doesn’t contain bringing again loot bins, even when it did offer you numerous free ones earlier than.
The fact is that as video games proceed to turn out to be increasingly in style, extra nations will start investigating the trade and the way it makes cash. And loot bins are probably by no means to return in vogue so long as so many governments are main crusades to control or outlaw them.
