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Comment by joveian | Hacker News Reader

My negative reaction is related to Epic's microtransaction (aka gambling, often aimed at children) and DRM use as well as being 40% owned by Tencent so your puchases now will help fund genocide.

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But they don't do gambling. Why is that lie still going on years after it was first invented?

The original story was that Fortnite had lootboxes for a few years (in that time where most of the industry was trying it out after Valve and Blizzard saw success). Fortnite is where the "lootboxes are gambling" debates really hit the high gear.

sometime in 2019 that random aspect was removed, however. To my knowledge, there is still a rotating shop of skins to purchase with premium currency. But you know what you are getting now. It's not too much different from how free MOBA's monetize their games with a bunch of cosmetic skins.

Thanks, I'm glad they aren't doing the random aspect now. Microtransactions are still a horrible way to design games but at least it is something if you know what you are getting. However, even if gambling isn't exactly the right word for the current situation there do still seem to be more recent stories about kids running up quite a bill on Fortnite. They still seem to be trying to get kids to spend as much money as possible. A quick search finds that this came up in Epic vs. Apple:

https://www.thegamer.com/judge-fortnites-microtransactions-c...

I mean, mine too. I’m very disappointed and worried about this. I’m less worried about the possible tech changes than I am about supporting a crappy company that I hate.

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