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They unironically were.
Epstein is on record talking with Bobby Kotick about pushing microtransactions on kids, like, over a decade ago.
https://www.aftribune.com/entertainment/epstein-files-expose-how-jeffrey-epstein-pushed-microtransactions-in-video-games/
To my knowledge, no former or current Valve employee was involved in any such discussions with Epstein...
... but yeah.
Lootboxes absolutely are in the Epstein files, he was all for 'indoctrinating kids into a digital economy.'
You may be too young to have experienced the before times, but MTX used to not exist, not be a thing.
You'd go to a store and buy an expansion pack to a game, whole bunch of new content and often new game mechanics, for maybe 1/2 to 1/3 the pricd of the original game.
Or, later, you'd just buy that online.
No digital fake currencies, no paying for a single game item, no battle passes.
Horse armor started all this. Don't forget bethesda and Microsoft are the entire reason digital script currencies and microtransactions exist.
Fuck Bethesda.
Literally everything they've done in the last decade has been a downgrade or cashgrab or outright joke.
... and they still, fucking still can't fix their garbage engine, they're still, still relying on modders to fix all their problems, and then they just fairly regularly do some kind of re release or major overhaul that breaks all of the mods.
MSFT's gaming division is dying: They're gonna get eviscerated.
I remember those days. Console games would release and that was it. The sequel(or expansion) might fix a thing or two. Multiplayer meant hanging out with friends. Computer game lobbies had custom game servers. If you wanted to wear a funny hat you would play on the funny hat server.
I don't really care for many multiplayer games so the MTX bug didn't have much of a chance to bite me. I did play TF2 when it started until it started to have items. All the fun evaporated. The hats weren't so funny when every server was the funny hat server.
I have a friend who has spent a lot of money on loot boxes since day one. There's no stopping the guy. When I was still around the neighborhood we grew up in we'd hang out often enough. I remember at least one night he was glued to his phone opening counterstrike boxes/crates while the rest of the crew was hanging out. I think he got a cool knife out of the hours spent on it. Maybe he sold that knife for the loot box money. I have no idea to be honest. It was a lot of crates for a game I've never played in a currency I don't understand. The MTX bug could raise great grandchildren off of a whale like him. It was weird seeing him under the spell of it all. Counterstrike was playing him that day.
He's not "one lootbox away from living on the street" but I found it concerning the amount of money going up in smoke like that. He is just one of many people who do it. It's gambling but the prize is a digital carnival item you might be able to sell on their marketplace. I'm glad I don't get it.