Over on his Medium page, Defiant Development Founder Morgan Jaffit posted some fantastic thoughts on the hottest subject in gaming at the moment: loot boxes. He discussed why they’re happening in major AAA titles like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and also broke down why they aren’t in his company’s upcoming action game, Hand of Fate 2, doesn’t have them. The whole article is well worth a read, but here are some fantastic excerpts that we’ve reprinted with permission from Jaffit.
Here’s Jaffit explaining why a game like Shadow of War being just as successful as its predecessor would be considered a “catastrophic failure” for publisher WBIE:

In the case of Mordor, though, the unanticipated success doesn?t help to fund the next iteration. The profits made are siphoned off into the WBIE (Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, the parent company) overall results for that year, and then a new project is begun. While the sequel, Shadow of War, retains the goodwill from the first title, the money is gone. It needs to be bigger and better AND it needs to pay for that additional scale by being an even bigger success than the first. In fact, the baseline for success has been reset. What was ?bigger success than anticipated,? for SoM would be considered a catastrophic failure for the sequel. More has been invested this time around, so more money has to be made in order to keep the profit margins high.
He contrasts that situation wi...