Josh was finally going to cave in to his desires today. He’d been saving up his allowance for months for this very moment. All the anxiety, all the longing, it would end today.
Possibly.
He collected as many lucky charms around him as he could find in his room. Then, with a trembling finger, he booted up Point Assault, and entered the in-game shop. The Platinum Crates within rotated ever so seductively.
He had done the math. The crates normally had a 1% drop chance for the featured items on them. Due to the ongoing rate-up event, this chance had been bumped up to... 3%. Yeah. Which meant that, if he bought around 40 of the crates, then he had more than a 100% chance of nabbing the Golden Kahlikat melee weapon, the rarest of this week’s featured items. The one skin he desperately needed.
He clicked through the various screens that popped up for a bulk purchase such as this, pausing not due to hesitation, but because he needed his heart to stop racing before he could continue. And then, he began to open them.
Each crate opened with a lavishly animated celebration. The first one was a dupe, or duplicate of a skin he already had. The second was new, but not the one he wanted. The other crates flashed by, filled with dupes or items he didn’t want. He could always sell them in the in-game market, he supposed.
The final crate burst open, his heart nearly joining it. It revealed… a Silver Kahlikat. He slumped in his chair in defeat.
He had done the math. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done all the math.
*
During visits to less reputable websites, Josh’s machine had contracted a very unique malware. Code-named “Gr33d1nat0r”, it was targeted towards games and other apps that contained purchasable items with randomized contents, or ‘loot boxes’. It hadn’t been successful at actually getting into the network of said games, because that required a kind of brute force: a large number of infected machines making in-game purchases from the same game, at the same time.
It just so happened that Josh’s buying spree, in the midst of a popular in-game event, had given Gr33d1nat0r the opening it needed. As it silently spread its digital fingers through Point Assault’s databases, two changes of note took place.
The after-effects of these two changes would destroy the core of Point Assault’s economy.
*
“Huh? Hey, Dave, the number of premium purchases is spiking right now.”
“What? That can’t be right, I’m seeing a drop in the income generated from the shop at the moment.”
“Sending you a screenshot now.”
“Strange… that just doesn’t add up! Wait, let me check something… oh. Oh no. No no no no.”
“What is it?”
“The prices on the store… Brad, everything’s been given a discount.”
“How big of a discount?”
“A 100% discount.”
“Including the Platinum Crates?”
“Including the Platinum Crates.”
“Oh. Shit. The forums must be on fire over this! What happened?”
“I don’t know! Maybe it’s a glitch, maybe some hack managed to get into our system, who knows! We need to fix this or corporate is going to axe our asses!”
“Um, Dave, about those forums… hang on, I need to check something.”
“What is it now!”
“They’re claiming that the Golden Kahlikat Platinum Crates are dropping a Golden Kahlikat nearly every time they’re opened. It’s the same with the other featured-item Platinum Crates.”
“But that can’t… are you checking the drop percentages on the crates now?”
“Almost there... yeah, it’s as I feared. The percentage chances on all Epic item drops have been bumped up. To a 100%.”
“Sigh. We should warn corporate before they find out for themselves.”
*
It was a lengthy rant, and had in no way been spell-checked or proof-read, but Josh didn’t care. He had needed to get it out of his system. And it still hadn’t fully left. Those cursed rate-up lies! And after all the time he’d spent playing the damned game!
Now that he had posted it, Josh decided to take a look at the rest of Point Assault’s main community forum. And was a little taken aback by all the new posts on it. His rant was already buried halfway in the first page!
Something major must have happened. Eager to take his mind off his current disappointment, Josh began to pour over all the latest musings.
Wait, they did what?
Josh was furious. Not only was he ripped off on those damned Platinum Crates, but then they immediately made the things free? AND turned the Epic item drops into guaranteed drops?
This was the last straw. Nearly frothing with anger, Josh immediately booted up the game, and bought himself one of the discounted crates for the Golden Kahlikat. After opening it up and adding the suddenly worthless skin to his loadout, he saved his changes, quit the game, and then uninstalled it.
*
“Stan, I have good news and bad news.”
“Fine. Give me the bad news, Carl.”
“Um, actually, it makes more sense to hear the good news first. So, they managed to completely remove the malware from the system. Which means we’re able to fix all the changes it made without it resetting our work.”
“Great, now give me the bad news already.”
“We’ll have to manually input all the correct values for all the in-game items that were affected before we can push the update. Including the ones that weren’t featured in the current event. And, well, we have a lot of items to fix.”
“Which means that the damage will be done by the time we bring the numbers back to normal. Sigh.”
“So, what now, Stan?”
“…what’s the status on Point Assault 2?”
“It’s, well, the vertical slice is almost stable…”
“Great. Let’s start production on it then.”
Possibly.
He collected as many lucky charms around him as he could find in his room. Then, with a trembling finger, he booted up Point Assault, and entered the in-game shop. The Platinum Crates within rotated ever so seductively.
He had done the math. The crates normally had a 1% drop chance for the featured items on them. Due to the ongoing rate-up event, this chance had been bumped up to... 3%. Yeah. Which meant that, if he bought around 40 of the crates, then he had more than a 100% chance of nabbing the Golden Kahlikat melee weapon, the rarest of this week’s featured items. The one skin he desperately needed.
He clicked through the various screens that popped up for a bulk purchase such as this, pausing not due to hesitation, but because he needed his heart to stop racing before he could continue. And then, he began to open them.
Each crate opened with a lavishly animated celebration. The first one was a dupe, or duplicate of a skin he already had. The second was new, but not the one he wanted. The other crates flashed by, filled with dupes or items he didn’t want. He could always sell them in the in-game market, he supposed.
The final crate burst open, his heart nearly joining it. It revealed… a Silver Kahlikat. He slumped in his chair in defeat.
He had done the math. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done all the math.
*
During visits to less reputable websites, Josh’s machine had contracted a very unique malware. Code-named “Gr33d1nat0r”, it was targeted towards games and other apps that contained purchasable items with randomized contents, or ‘loot boxes’. It hadn’t been successful at actually getting into the network of said games, because that required a kind of brute force: a large number of infected machines making in-game purchases from the same game, at the same time.
It just so happened that Josh’s buying spree, in the midst of a popular in-game event, had given Gr33d1nat0r the opening it needed. As it silently spread its digital fingers through Point Assault’s databases, two changes of note took place.
The after-effects of these two changes would destroy the core of Point Assault’s economy.
*
“Huh? Hey, Dave, the number of premium purchases is spiking right now.”
“What? That can’t be right, I’m seeing a drop in the income generated from the shop at the moment.”
“Sending you a screenshot now.”
“Strange… that just doesn’t add up! Wait, let me check something… oh. Oh no. No no no no.”
“What is it?”
“The prices on the store… Brad, everything’s been given a discount.”
“How big of a discount?”
“A 100% discount.”
“Including the Platinum Crates?”
“Including the Platinum Crates.”
“Oh. Shit. The forums must be on fire over this! What happened?”
“I don’t know! Maybe it’s a glitch, maybe some hack managed to get into our system, who knows! We need to fix this or corporate is going to axe our asses!”
“Um, Dave, about those forums… hang on, I need to check something.”
“What is it now!”
“They’re claiming that the Golden Kahlikat Platinum Crates are dropping a Golden Kahlikat nearly every time they’re opened. It’s the same with the other featured-item Platinum Crates.”
“But that can’t… are you checking the drop percentages on the crates now?”
“Almost there... yeah, it’s as I feared. The percentage chances on all Epic item drops have been bumped up. To a 100%.”
“Sigh. We should warn corporate before they find out for themselves.”
*
It was a lengthy rant, and had in no way been spell-checked or proof-read, but Josh didn’t care. He had needed to get it out of his system. And it still hadn’t fully left. Those cursed rate-up lies! And after all the time he’d spent playing the damned game!
Now that he had posted it, Josh decided to take a look at the rest of Point Assault’s main community forum. And was a little taken aback by all the new posts on it. His rant was already buried halfway in the first page!
Something major must have happened. Eager to take his mind off his current disappointment, Josh began to pour over all the latest musings.
Wait, they did what?
Josh was furious. Not only was he ripped off on those damned Platinum Crates, but then they immediately made the things free? AND turned the Epic item drops into guaranteed drops?
This was the last straw. Nearly frothing with anger, Josh immediately booted up the game, and bought himself one of the discounted crates for the Golden Kahlikat. After opening it up and adding the suddenly worthless skin to his loadout, he saved his changes, quit the game, and then uninstalled it.
*
“Stan, I have good news and bad news.”
“Fine. Give me the bad news, Carl.”
“Um, actually, it makes more sense to hear the good news first. So, they managed to completely remove the malware from the system. Which means we’re able to fix all the changes it made without it resetting our work.”
“Great, now give me the bad news already.”
“We’ll have to manually input all the correct values for all the in-game items that were affected before we can push the update. Including the ones that weren’t featured in the current event. And, well, we have a lot of items to fix.”
“Which means that the damage will be done by the time we bring the numbers back to normal. Sigh.”
“So, what now, Stan?”
“…what’s the status on Point Assault 2?”
“It’s, well, the vertical slice is almost stable…”
“Great. Let’s start production on it then.”
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