The loot box facts are on the table. A law requires Blizzard to disclose the exact drop rates in Overwatch .
Fans of Overwatch have long wondered what the chances are of loot boxes yielding an item of a certain rarity. Until now, people have only speculated wildly and created tables based on player experiences to calculate the exact chances.
It is thanks to a Chinese law that Blizzard – just like all other game developers – has had to publish the exact data since May 1. Loot boxes in video games are very similar to gambling, and the new law requires that customers are informed about how high the chances are of drawing special rewards from them.
Overwatch: The exact chances of the loot box
- Every loot box contains at least one item of rare quality (blue) – so in 100% of cases.
- For every 5.5 loot boxes, there is an item of epic quality (purple) – so in 18.2% of all cases.
- For every 13.5 loot boxes, there is an item of legendary quality (orange) – so in 7.4% of all cases.
The values roughly correspond to what players had already calculated when they evaluated the opening of thousands of loot boxes.
It is worth mentioning that these drop rates only apply to China. Although there is currently no indication that Blizzard uses different distributions in different regions, one should still keep this possibility in mind.
What do you think of this law? Would you wish for something similar in Germany? Or do you think Blizzard’s disclosures are not sufficient?
Cortyn says: Honestly, I was hoping for a bit more detailed information from the law. Are there differences between individual legendary skins? How exactly does the “Pity Timer” work, where after a certain amount of time it guarantees epic and legendary items? Maybe I just hoped too much from the law – and one should be satisfied with what has now been published.
Overwatch is sometimes used for quite absurd things – like election campaigns.
