Saw an article about sales of grab bag items, i.e. for $1 you buy something that has some chance of getting some really awesome stuff but most likely it'll be junk. It's essentially a lottery, which I don't have a problem with, but I'm really surprised a lot of MMORPGs apparently offer these services without telling you the chance of getting the prized item at all.
To be, that looks like an outright scam especially if it's done by a lesser known MMORPG where you can't really trust the brand. If the Uber Sword of Awesomeness has a value of $1000 and drops 1 in 1 million bags that cost $1 each then you'd be a lot better off just buy it outright from someone who has it. It's not an issue about being good at math or whatever. Plenty of people with solid mathematical understanding buys Magic the Gathering booster packs hoping they'd get lucky, or participate in the lottery. But you've to at least have some reasonable guaranteed that the whole thing isn't a scam. For example we know you get 1 rare per booster pack of MTG, and presumably all rare are equally rare. We know the pool of numbers you draw the lottery from and we're pretty sure the process is truly random. They might not be a good idea from a mathematic point of view but you know what you're getting into when you participate.
It seems like there has to be some kind of law to force publishers to disclose the odds. It seems no different than say run an online casino and then just outright lie about the results to make more money. Then again, that has already happened too.
To be, that looks like an outright scam especially if it's done by a lesser known MMORPG where you can't really trust the brand. If the Uber Sword of Awesomeness has a value of $1000 and drops 1 in 1 million bags that cost $1 each then you'd be a lot better off just buy it outright from someone who has it. It's not an issue about being good at math or whatever. Plenty of people with solid mathematical understanding buys Magic the Gathering booster packs hoping they'd get lucky, or participate in the lottery. But you've to at least have some reasonable guaranteed that the whole thing isn't a scam. For example we know you get 1 rare per booster pack of MTG, and presumably all rare are equally rare. We know the pool of numbers you draw the lottery from and we're pretty sure the process is truly random. They might not be a good idea from a mathematic point of view but you know what you're getting into when you participate.
It seems like there has to be some kind of law to force publishers to disclose the odds. It seems no different than say run an online casino and then just outright lie about the results to make more money. Then again, that has already happened too.
