Here is why WG won't do anything about the Santa Crates scam

[viceadmiral123]

As some of you have noticed from the numerous reports by players, the "Santa crates" are not a random drop, but are biased towards low-tier "common" premium ships. Withholding information from the buyer and false advertising are crimes in many legislations. However, WG will cite their EULA like it is some kind of world law and wish you good luck with your further purchases. All that concerns WG is that buyers keep throwing money until they get whatever item they had in mind, or just spend their predetermined limit without much regard of the biased rewards. WG will make the "Santa crate" drop rates as bad as possible as long as the whales don't mind and keep spending. 

Happy holidays!

[S_h_i_v_a]

 

[viceadmiral123]

Things really went South this year...

[Unfortunate_Son]

They shot themselves in the foot by going full greed mode. Selecting only bad ships on the shortlist was a shortsighted decision. One that  lead to a quick discovery of all the ships on the said list.

 

Next Xmas, some brave souls may buy containers when those are introduced. Patient ones will wait what ships the shortlist will contain before making any purchases.

 

They managed to kill Xmas sales for 2020 and 2021 with one strike. Which is an impressive feat in itself. An act of (financial) desperation?

[Ronchabale]

If you buy ALL the ships above tier 3 in the premium shop before purchasing any "loot" crates you will find your get a lot of "rare" ships from Santa crates

[viceadmiral123]

5 minutes ago, Unfortunate_Son said:

They managed to kill Xmas sales for 2020 and 2021 with one strike. Which is an impressive feat in itself. An act of (financial) desperation?

Unfortunately I doubt their sales went down significantly. Imagine the players buying in large volumes, they will not immediately notice the shortlist scam, or care much about getting fewer and "common" premium ships. Or the player that only bought a few boxes maybe will be happy he got the #scamakarov.

[Verblonde]

15 minutes ago, Unfortunate_Son said:

Selecting only bad ships on the shortlist was a shortsighted decision.

Whilst I strongly feel that the way WG presented the boxes, with regard to what you're likely to get from them, is an utter Richard move (entirely justifying the outrage that we're seeing), it's a little strong to say that only bad ships are on the shortlist. If you'll permit me to elaborate:

 

According to the Reddit thread we've all seen, the shortlists are as follows.

Gift Shortlist (WIP)

• Tier 6 British cruiser London

• Tier 6 French cruiser De Grasse (?)

• Tier 5 European battleship Viribus Unitis

Big Gift Shortlist

• Tier 6 Soviet cruiser Makarov (common)

• Tier 7 US battleship California

• Tier 8 European destroyer Orkan

Mega Shortlist

• Tier 6 Italian cruiser Duca D'aosta (common)

• Tier 7 Japanese destroyer Yuudachi (common)

• Tier 8 British battleship Vanguard

• Tier 8 Soviet cruiser Ochakov

We'll all have our own opinions on these ships, based on personal experience and preferences (for example, the only Big Gift ship I view as dross is Cali), but I think a reasonable description of the bulk of ships on the short-lists is 'meh'. What I mean by that is, if one reads the entire long-list of ship possibilities from the boxes, there are quite a few (mostly T5) where the value proposition is noticeably worse than most of the short list ships (yeah, I know VU is in there, but apart from her). The short list approach makes it harder to get these 'lowest value' drops as well.

 

Whilst I should emphasise that I'm not defending what WG have done with this year's boxes (especially the marketing), I can see why they've done what they've done - imagine the uproar if the initial box opening threads were full of people getting lots of T5 ships...

 

[Unfortunate_Son]

@Verblonde agree. "Commercially unpopular" might be a better term than "bad". But the point stands. Ship selection made it easy to deduce the composition of the shortlist.

[159Hunter]

48 minutes ago, Unfortunate_Son said:

They managed to kill Xmas sales for 2020 and 2021 with one strike. Which is an impressive feat in itself. An act of (financial) desperation?

Yeah, nope.... nope nope nope.

They've been pulling a lot of **** fests lately and people still throw money at them. Keep in mind atht only a small minority actually uses these forums.

The main part of the playerbase doesn't even know what's going on. Hence they'll keep paying rubles to WG.

[anonym_cwVecOS6ecVy]

What baffles me the most is that people are actually trying to continue the support after all WG has done to their games and the community. Over the years this all led to the current meta of the games industry. It became fraudulent, greedy, riddled with gambling mechanics. And players still cash in and continue to play. Everyone should immediately stop supporting WG, uninstall all of their titles and stop spending any cent. It will not get better, only worse. It does not matter if you believe in this new scam or not, all measures they took over the last couple of years only had one goal, to milk the player base, hiding all their shady approaches the best they can. The more I dig into it the more WoWS and WoT to me are becoming an empty hull with dummies, bots and background artists. A soulless system misleading players. As soon as you stop playing for a couple of weeks you realize the vortex of enthusiasm, painful frustration, addiction and stress you have left behind. And if you are honest to yourself you exactly know what I am talking about. This is their only engine, hidden behind cool looking visuals. For the sake of gaming as a hobby I would like to motivate everyone to stop supporting WG and look for other games to play. I am done with their manipulative crap and I have supported them again and again for almost a decade believing in their games and the community. I just cannot take it anymore.

[Bellegar]

1 hour ago, viceadmiral123 said:

Withholding information from the buyer and false advertising are crimes in many legislations. However, WG will cite their EULA like it is some kind of world law

That is why I reported this/them to the Dutch Gamble Association and Advertisement Commission, those two agencies actually uphold world laws. 

And I urge everybody to do the same for their respective government bodies!

[The_White_Whale]

Just a reminder that EULAs have zero legal standing, don't let any company try to use one as power over you if you feel like they abused their position or have broken laws.

[Starchy_Tuber]

1 hour ago, Ronchabale said:

I you buy ALL the ships above tier 3 in the premium shop before purchasing any "loot" crates you will find your get a lot of "rare" ships from Santa crates

genius

[Leo_Apollo11]

Hi all,

 

1 hour ago, Verblonde said:

Whilst I strongly feel that the way WG presented the boxes, with regard to what you're likely to get from them, is an utter Richard move (entirely justifying the outrage that we're seeing), it's a little strong to say that only bad ships are on the shortlist. If you'll permit me to elaborate:

 

According to the Reddit thread we've all seen, the shortlists are as follows.

Gift Shortlist (WIP)

• Tier 6 British cruiser London

• Tier 6 French cruiser De Grasse (?)

• Tier 5 European battleship Viribus Unitis

Big Gift Shortlist

• Tier 6 Soviet cruiser Makarov (common)

• Tier 7 US battleship California

• Tier 8 European destroyer Orkan

Mega Shortlist

• Tier 6 Italian cruiser Duca D'aosta (common)

• Tier 7 Japanese destroyer Yuudachi (common)

• Tier 8 British battleship Vanguard

• Tier 8 Soviet cruiser Ochakov

We'll all have our own opinions on these ships, based on personal experience and preferences (for example, the only Big Gift ship I view as dross is Cali), but I think a reasonable description of the bulk of ships on the short-lists is 'meh'. What I mean by that is, if one reads the entire long-list of ship possibilities from the boxes, there are quite a few (mostly T5) where the value proposition is noticeably worse than most of the short list ships (yeah, I know VU is in there, but apart from her). The short list approach makes it harder to get these 'lowest value' drops as well.

 

Whilst I should emphasise that I'm not defending what WG have done with this year's boxes (especially the marketing), I can see why they've done what they've done - imagine the uproar if the initial box opening threads were full of people getting lots of T5 ships...

 

 

We have preliminary data collected by our Forumite @black_falcon120 here by me:

 

"Preliminary look at Santa's crates statistics collected by our Forumite "Black_Falcon120"..."

 

 

 

Leo "Apollo11"

[_HomTanks_]

2 hours ago, viceadmiral123 said:

As some of you have noticed from the numerous reports by players, the "Santa crates" are not a random drop, but are biased towards low-tier "common" premium ships. Withholding information from the buyer and false advertising are crimes in many legislations. However, WG will cite their EULA like it is some kind of world law and wish you good luck with your further purchases. All that concerns WG is that buyers keep throwing money until they get whatever item they had in mind, or just spend their predetermined limit without much regard of the biased rewards. WG will make the "Santa crate" drop rates as bad as possible as long as the whales don't mind and keep spending. 

Happy holidays!

Exactly.

[Ronchabale]

45 minutes ago, Starchy_Tuber said:

genius

Dont forget to get all the "Black" ships too 

[viceadmiral123]

1 hour ago, Bellegar said:

That is why I reported this/them to the Dutch Gamble Association and Advertisement Commission, those two agencies actually uphold world laws. 

And I urge everybody to do the same for their respective government bodies!

This is the way.

[Logan_MountStuart]

The problem is they have done nothing illegal.  The crates say there is a chance of obtaining a "Premium" ship and that's exactly what happens.

The only way to avoid disappointment is not to buy any and people should know this, it's the policy of every company that sells "gambling" boxes and the clue is right there.

 

[geschlittert]

25 minutes ago, Logan_MountStuart said:

The problem is they have done nothing illegal.  The crates say there is a chance of obtaining a "Premium" ship and that's exactly what happens.

No, it states that you will get "one of the 107 ships on the list" which is simply not true since you have to have one of the ships from the shortlist before even having a slight chance at getting another ship.

[viceadmiral123]

27 minutes ago, Logan_MountStuart said:

The problem is they have done nothing illegal.  The crates say there is a chance of obtaining a "Premium" ship and that's exactly what happens.

The only way to avoid disappointment is not to buy any and people should know this, it's the policy of every company that sells "gambling" boxes and the clue is right there.

Clearly you don't fully believe that. Every gambling establishment, if you say this is one, is licensed and regulated in every country. But I am sure that is the last thing WG wants to happen.

[Migantium_Mashum]

1 minute ago, geschlittert said:

No, it states that you will get "one of the 107 ships on the list" which is simply not true since you have to have one of the ships from the shortlist before even having a slight chance at getting another ship.

In the UK it is classed as false advertising and would entitle the customer the right to claim a full refund.. However, if WG then go on to ban your account, you could lose years of hard work and access to Ships already purchased..

I think over the years we know what WG are by now and how much they 'Value' (cough cough) their players.... Personally I stopped spending and so will suffer no more from their deceit.

 

 

[UnterSeeBot]

2 hours ago, Verblonde said:

Whilst I should emphasise that I'm not defending what WG have done with this year's boxes (especially the marketing), I can see why they've done what they've done - imagine the uproar if the initial box opening threads were full of people getting lots of T5 ships...

there would be no uproar of this kind if WG were transparant, by publishing an accurate product description which stated the odds (fixed or random) of possible items.

They don't publish these odds, as their interests are better served by misleading customers with inaccurate product descriptions thereby allowing WG to offload undesirable horse manure (such as California).

[HARBINGER_OF_SKULLS]

46 minutes ago, Logan_MountStuart said:

 The crates say there is a chance of obtaining a "Premium" ship 

Read again.

 

Every festive Santa's Gift container will bring you something of value: Coal, doubloons, signals, or even a Premium ship. This year, more ships have been added to the list of Premium ships, and you have chances of becoming the owner of the following rare ships: (Full list)

[Ocsimano18]

They put low demand ships, good or bad, on the shortlist, because the goal was to increase crate buys. If you get an average T7-T8 that you did not want, you are more likely to continue gambling than if you immediately get a ship you wanted.

[MacFergus]

1 hour ago, Logan_MountStuart said:

The problem is they have done nothing illegal.  The crates say there is a chance of obtaining a "Premium" ship and that's exactly what happens.

The only way to avoid disappointment is not to buy any and people should know this, it's the policy of every company that sells "gambling" boxes and the clue is right there.

 

No its says you have a chance of winning out of 107 premium ships which is a lie their is no mention of a shortlist of ships that you will get regardless.

 

Shills will be shills you think WG will give you better MM or something?