Epic Games CEO Says Politics and Loot Boxes Don’t Belong
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney recently said during a keynote speech at this year’s DICE Summit that loot boxes and politics should be removed from gaming. Sweeney believes that games should be neutral venues which allow gamers to hold their own views and not be judged by us for that. Although controlling an online narrative is difficult, with other gamers adding their perspective to the conversation, this can be a viable approach to single player games. Tim Sweeney became a wealthy man when Fortnite took off which is available on Mobile, Switch, Xbox One, PC, PS4 and Mac.
According to Tim Sweeney, “the world is really screwed up right now. Right now our political orientations determine which fast-food chicken restaurant you go to. And that’s really dumb,” he said. “There’s no reason to drag divisive topics like that into gaming at all… Epic’s mission is to build great technology and great games. And we can count on every employee at Epic, we can even demand every employee at Epic unite behind that mission. But every other matter we have to respect their personal opinions. And they may differ from management’s or each other’s or whatever.”
When Tim Sweeney spoke about loot boxes he said, “we should be very reticent of creating an experience where the outcome can be influenced by spending money. Loot boxes play on all the mechanics of gambling except for the ability to get more money out in the end… We have to ask ourselves, as an industry, what we want to be when we grow up? Do we want to be like Las Vegas, with slot machines, or do we want to be widely respected as creators of products that customers can trust? I think we will see more and more publishers move away from loot boxes.”
Do you agree that loot boxes should be removed from games? Do you wish more games were political neutral? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: PC Gamer