Changes are coming to Loot Boxes in Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, the wildly popular Battle Royale game that conquered 2017 and looks poised to do the same in 2018. The game has always had loot boxes, which the player bought with “Battle Points” earned through play. Those loot boxes are sticking around, but we’re also getting a fun, second type of crate. Players still buy this crate with Battle Points, but they must also open it with a key that costs $2.50. This was bound to happen at some point, especially as developer PUBG Corp. aims to expand and monetize its already gigantic audience. It will be testing out the new system on the test server, as outlined in a blog post:
We will also be testing the new crate system with two new crates. We know some of you have been looking forward to this. One crate will be free to open and the other one will require a key. Every test server user will be granted 100 000 BP and 6 Early Bird keys (the new unified PUBG crate key that can open Desperado and Gamescom crates), so that they can test the new crates and the items within. Each time you spend BP to get a crate, you will get one of the 4 available crates. There will be a much higher chance of getting one of the two new ones. You can see the exact percentage values below. The BP value, the new items and the keys won’t be transferred to live accounts. They are granted purely for the purpose of testing, to make sure that everything stays stable once the test build is moved to the live servers. As always, all our crate items are purely cosmetic in nature and provide no gameplay advantage.
The two new boxes would seem to dovetail with the Desert-themed Miramar map — we’ve got “Biker” for our free crate, and “Desperado” for our paid crate, though Biker really looks more like the premium content to my eyes. The developer also published the odds of getting specific items out of specific loot boxes, which you can see below:
Desperado Items:
- Sleeveless Turtleneck Top (Gray) : 8.00%
- Leather Boots (Black) : 8.00%
- Punk Knuckle Gloves (Black) : 7.50%
- Baggy Pants (Black) : 7.50%
- Striped Tank-top : 7.50%
- Wide Pants (Red) : 7.50%
- Punk Knuckle Gloves (Red) : 7.00%
- Sleeveless Turtleneck (Black) : 7.00%
- Baggy Pants (Brown) : 5.00%
- Long Leather Boots (Brown) : 5.00%
- Striped Shirt (Gray) : 5.00%
- Beanie (Brown) : 5.00%
- Horn-rimmed Glasses (Black) : 4.50%
- Training Pants (Light Blue) : 4.50%
- Leather Boots (Brown) : 4.50%
- Horn-rimmed Glasses (Brown) : 2.50%
- Aviator Sunglasses : 1.30%
- Checkered Jacket : 1.30%
- Long-sleeved Leather Shirt : 0.60%
- Leather Hoodie (Black) : 0.32%
- Leather Hoodie (White) : 0.32%
- Cloth Mask (Leopard) : 0.16%
Biker Items:
- Long-sleeved T-shirt (Red) : 15.00%
- School Shoes (Brown) : 15.00%
- raglan shirt : 10.00%
- T-shirt (Pink striped) : 10.00%
- Polka Dot T-shirt : 10.00%
- Dirty Long-sleeved T-shirt : 10.00%
- School Shoes (Black) : 5.00%
- Skinny Jeans (Khaki) : 5.00%
- Gas Mask (Half) : 4.50%
- Beanie (Gray) : 4.50%
- Sleeveless Turtleneck (Red) : 4.50%
- Skinny Jeans (Pink) : 2.50%
- Patrol Cap (Brown) : 1.20%
- Sleeveless Turtleneck (Gray Striped) : 1.20%
- Patrol Cap (Gray) : 0.40%
- Biker Pants (Black) : 0.40%
- Floral Shirt (White) : 0.26%
- Sneakers (Black) : 0.26%
- Padded Jacket (Purple) : 0.06%
- Princess Power Tank-top : 0.06%
- Floral Shirt (Black) : 0.05%
- Biker Pants (Gray) : 0.05%
- Aviator Goggles : 0.03%
- Sleeveless Biker Jacket (Brown) : 0.01%
- Sleeveless Biker Jacket (Black) : 0.01%
- Cloth Mask (Checkered) : 0.01%
So we’re looking at things like the Cloth Masks — both checkered and Leopard, as well as the Leather Hoodies and Long Sleeved Leather Shirts, Aviator Goggles and Sleeveless Biker Jackets as the new top-tier jackpot items in the game. Some of these are from the paid crate and some from the free crate, but we pay for everything one way or another. Expect those items as well as other rare items to light up the Steam Marketplace.
Last year, people both in and out of the video game world began to wonder if loot boxes, with their random rewards for real-money investment, constituted a form of gambling, or if they were at the very least exploitative of some of our more addictive tendencies. That becomes a very different proposition when you’re working with a game like PUBG, where players can sell their loot for real money on the Steam Marketplace. Already some of the game’s highest value items are going for $500, with a crate called “PlayerUnknown Set” going for nearly $2000. As Polygon’s Ben Kuchera points out, it doesn’t take a whole lot to connect the real money rewards from rare items from randomized loot boxes to a system where people are paying real money in hopes of getting a large, random return — it sounds a bit like gambling. The Steam Marketplace has had its share of gambling controversies before, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Steam become a flash point if various lawmakers continue to peer into loot boxes and gaming.
