One would think that in this day and age of data mining for information that game companies would try to be more transparent in what they are doing when it comes to making (or trying to make) the gaming industry better. Well, for Activision, that’s not the case. Recently Activision was filing a patent for match making in their games, which on the surface sounds intriguing but it was discovered that this patent was actually aimed at purposely matchmaking low level or “crappy” players (no offense) with higher level or “skilled” players in the attempt to drive those low level players to get angry and go out and buy loot boxes in the attempt to drive more micro-transactions. But you would think that this was the worst thing right? Well, you would be so very wrong.
Recently, a new patent was discovered that was filed by none other than Activision, aimed at making more of a reminiscent 80’s con man move by filing a patent that would allow them to overlay a screen when you are killed during a PvP match by letting you know who killed you, what weapon killed you and how you can obtain that weapon. But wait… this doesn’t sound so bad does it? The fact is there is a little more to this new feature that they are trying to patent; this patent would also allow them to also buy a loot crate, weapon pack, etc. that would allow a player to instantly buy said pack to give them the chance or to allow them to directly purchase said weapon or ability. Which on the surface wouldn’t sound that bad but the big problem is gamer rage.
With gamer rage, players who are having a really bad game will make very horrible decisions (I have broke many of controllers) and this will only add fuel to the fire. However, lets look at a positive before the apparent negative. With a system like this in play, players would be able to see a newer weapon that someone else has and would tell the player how they would be able to obtain that weapon. Pushing them to want to keep playing and collecting enough in game loot to try and purchase the pack.
But with Activision, this is not their intent, in fact their sole drive is to push more players to make rash decisions and buy a weapon pack or loot crate out of frustration and with more players having payment methods attached to their accounts (please don’t do this), this will allow Activision to push for more pricier loot crates that players will not look at the price tag and will buy it on a whim, causing them to make a horrible financial decision.
