At this point, it would take something monumentally stupid to reverse the "loot box" trend in video games. The practice, which combines real money, virtual items, and random chance, has been found in various free-to-play games for years (and has been showing up more in fully priced retail games recently). The sales pitch, in short: by paying a little more real cash, a player will more quickly unlock a random item in the game (and see a flashy animation of a box opening—that part is apparently crucial).

This racket often skates by because game makers say that they're hiding "non-essential" and "cosmetic" items in these boxes. Game makers also point out that these "random item" boxes can almost always be earned simply by playing the game. Who's losing out?

The problem, as far as I'm concerned, is the poison these random-prize systems inject into their games' design. I've been biding my time, waiting for a loot box system so stupid and unnecessary that I can finally name and deconstruct the demonic practice in no uncertain terms. For that reason, I wholeheartedly thank Turn 10 and Microsoft Studios for the loot-box disaster that they've cooked into this week's release of Forza Motorsport 7.

Defining “pay to earn”

Before breaking down the greater problem with loot boxes, let's start with the Forza series' brand-new take.















Previous Forza Motorsport games have let fans trade real money for virtual "CR" coins, which are also easily earned in races. Those coins can be spent to purchase new virtual cars for your garage. Should you no longer want a specific car, you can auction it off to other, real players, and they'll send you some of their own CR coins in exchange.

Forza 7 adds the new option to spend CR coins on loot boxes, which Turn 10 has renamed "prize crates." Forza's boxes come in a variety of names and CR costs. At the low end of the spectrum, the "basic mods crate" costs 20,000 CR—an amount that can be earned by completing two standard Forza 7 races. On the higher end of the spectrum, you can buy an "elite mixed crate" for 150,000 CR or pony up as much as 300,000 for a limited-time "lucky car crate."

Let me be clear: As of press time, Forza Motorsport 7 does not let you pay real money for its CR coins or for its loot boxes. But that will almost certainly change. Turn 10 confirmed its plans in a statement to Ars Technica: "Once we confirm that the game economy is balanced and fun for our players out in the wild, we plan to offer Tokens [a real-money currency that works like CR] as a matter of player choice. Some players appreciate using Tokens as a way of gaining immediate access to content that may take many hours to acquire in the normal course of play. There will also be an option within the in-game menu to turn off Tokens entirely." That being said, the following criticisms apply to Forza 7's loot boxes even without them being attached to a real-world economy.

Much like other in-game loot boxes, those in Forza 7 unlock random in-game cars and cosmetic items (and I'll get to those). But Forza 7 adds a peculiar and arguably non-essential twist to the loot boxes' random contents through a new item called a "mod." That might sound like an item that will modify a car to enhance its performance, but it actually modifies the circumstances of the next race—and, consequently, the amount of CR you can earn in that race.

Apply a "night race" mod to your car before a race, for example, and you'll turn your next race from day to night—and earn 30 percent more CR on that race. An "instability" mod turns off one of the game's "driver assist" perks in exchange for a 30-percent CR boost. Some mods don't count unless you complete an objective, like pulling off two "perfect turns" in a race. Other mods simply grant a flat CR reward boost in your next race without additional requirements.

Changing the difficulty or terms of a single race in exchange for a higher CR payout will sound familiar to Forza fans, because this used to simply be a standard thing you could do whenever you wanted. Players could manually add or remove certain assists—like "driving line" marks of where you should accelerate and brake—and get more CR per race for having fewer assists. That's no longer the case. You can still adjust the assists as you see fit, but you won't be rewarded for doing so... unless you have the right mod in your inventory.

Turn 10 has taken away a solid "play how you want for more CR" system in order to have a new, more marketable loot-box gimmick. But Forza 7's mods, which can only be earned in loot boxes, are primarily just another way for players to shuffle their CR coins around. The loot box system encourages players to dump their stacks of CR into the loot box economy in order to earn more CR. Spend CR to make CR! That's just good business.

In some ways, this reminds me of deck-building board games like Dominion, which are at their worst when players obsess over the math of a perfect deck of cards instead of interacting with other friends at the table. In other ways, this reminds me of slot machines, which randomly dole out bonuses and percentage boosts at just the right time to give players little endorphin rushes right before they might otherwise quit. Either way, this kind of play effectively takes you out of the driver's seat—or even the pit—to become a bean counter.

Does the clown smile behind tinted glass?





















Turn 10 also painted itself into a "cosmetic item" corner by making previous Forza games so open to liveries and paint customizations. The series' developers did right by the sim-driving community in letting players freely and openly paint their favorite cars with in-game editors and share those designs with other players at no charge. That hasn't changed in Forza 7: sexy new car designs are not hidden in loot crates, and that's great news. So, then, how can Turn 10 sneak a cosmetic option into its loot boxes?

The answer is hilarious: driver outfits.

That's right. You can now dress up an in-game character, whom you pretty much never see during the course of a race, thanks to realistically dark windshields and camera angles that in no way emphasize what color or design of outfit your race car driver is wearing. To combat this inherent limitation, Turn 10 shoves your driver into your face by having him or her stand around menus all of the time. They stand alone, constantly pantomiming a high level of excitement in spite of almost always standing in an empty garage next to a single car. Everything they do, particularly clapping hands, looks robotic and weird. In spite of these limits and awkward animations, you still have the opportunity to dress your driver as a doctor, a cheerleader, a mime, a clown, or more, complete with zany helmet designs to match.

Even here, there are a few catches. First, the game at launch includes a whopping 361 costumes, but they must all be individually unlocked (with the exception of outfits unlocked by either owning prior games or by paying for the game's "deluxe" version). More than 100 of those are color-differentiation clones of the game's more generic designs, which dilutes the unlocking pool. Worst of all, you cannot individually unlock outfits with in-game currency. If you're eyeing a specific outfit, you have to hope that you open the right prize crate or find it as a random reward for leveling up via the game's "experience points" system (which can take as many as eight races to do per XP level).

You can also unlock cars via prize crates, but only a few of the more expensive crates offer this option. It's unclear at this early point in the game's existence whether their high cost—at least 150,000 CR and as many as 300,000—pans out as a value for the "legendary" cars they unlock. Even if you pay the dear price, though, you're not even guaranteed some of the pricey crates. You're more likely to unlock mods, driver outfits, and "banners" to assign to your driver's profile page.