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Good morning everybody,

I did a small research about it but I couldn't find anything really useful.

Let's suppose there is an Android game where each player can collect monsters. Collection occurs through a RNG (which is server-side), in this way:

  1. the player "opens" a magic box.
  2. a (supposed-to-be) random monster is added to his collection.

Every monster has its own rarity: there are Common ones, Uncommon ones or Rare ones. In principle, when a player opens a magic box he should have

  • ~90% prob. of getting a common monster;
  • ~9.5% prob. of getting an uncommon monster;
  • ~0.5% prob. of getting a rare monster.

Let's say there are 600 common monsters, 130 uncommon monsters and 30 rare monsters. In the described scenario, the probability of getting two identical consecutive monsters is very low. Since it happens very often (once, twice, thrice a day if someone opens dozens of magic boxes) I can draw two conclusions:

  • either the RNG is strongly rigged, which is indeed a possibility
  • or the game uses loot tables

Now, let's suppose that loot tables are indeed used. The game is technically free-to-play, but one of the many purchasable contents are the "Packs of magic boxes": each player can choose to buy a pack and open, let's say, 10, 20 or 40 boxes. Thus, a player cannot buy a specific monster but only the chance of getting it.

What if some (paying) player has a very lucky loot table while someone else (still paying) player has a very unlucky one? They both pay, they both should have the same opportunities in the game but this of course cannot occur.

Here it is my question: are loot tables still allowed when we deal with (yet random) purchasable content? Or..are there specific policies that rule how algorithms must work when the user spends real money?

I couldn't find anything about it, nor in the Developer Content Policy, nor in the Developer Distribution Agreement, nor in the Google Standard/Premier Terms.

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TLDR;: in many games we can buy ingame currency for real money, then we can use that currency to buy ingame "mystery boxes". For the Google Developer Policies, can those "mystery boxes" rely on loot tables?

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Thanks everyone, Bob

RM00
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  • Sounds more like a legal question than a programming question. – spenibus Aug 21 '15 at 13:02
  • Yeah it is, but to be honest I couldn't find the proper Google forum where I could ask this question. I posted here because I've found this suggestion directly on one of the many Google Contacts pages. – RM00 Aug 22 '15 at 13:23
  • I remember some policy regarding RNG based games that the developer must disclose the rate/chance of certain items. I couldn't find it at the moment. – lordhong Oct 23 '15 at 01:43

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