With the subject of loot boxes being a major source of contention within the gaming community, many are wondering what the future holds for the consumable virtual items and how they will operate and be incorporated within video games moving forward. While the debate over their flaws and merits persist, The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red recently decided to weigh in on the matter, with the company's co-founder Marcin Iwinski having now said his piece on the controversial issue.

The fine folks over at PC Gamer recently sat down with Iwinski to discuss loot boxes and microtransactions, which led to the CD Projekt Red co-founder sharing some choice words about the issue that reflect the company's philosophy on providing content. In Iwinski's opinion, "If you buy a full priced game, you should get a big, polished piece of content, which gives you many, many hours of fun gameplay." The CD Projekt Red developer further explained this perspective, stating:

"The definition of ‘many’ may vary on a title-by-title basis, but in our case it was always 50-60+ hours of the main story-line, with up to a couple of hundred of hours of side activities—if you really wanted to max out the title. To me, this is a fair deal. You get what you paid for, plus we are always trying our best to overdeliver. There is no better PR than a happy gamer recommending your title to their friends."

the-witcher-3-devils-pit-mod

Iwinski didn't stop with his take on loot boxes, as the CD Projekt Red co-founder went on to talk about the issue of developers putting out post-launch content with the potential to price gouge customers. According to Iwinski, his company views expansions and DLC in two different lights, saying, "Then there’s additional paid content. What we call Expansions . . . Things like add-ons way back in the Baldur’s Gate era. We released two Expansions like that, and each of them was a meaningful piece of content delivering many hours of new story and gameplay. Finally, there are the DLCs. For us, they’re small pieces of content which should be available for free," which was the case with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

In order to paint the fairest picture possible, Iwinski also put CD Projekt Red's own title Gwent under a microscope to explain how it deals with free-to-play titles. The development company's co-founder stated, "You can buy card kegs and some vanity items. Again, the deal is simple—you can play the game for free and craft your desired card collection this way, or decide to spend money and get card kegs. The choice is yours, and the only thing you pay for is time and convenience."

All in all, it seems as if Iwinski wanted people to walk away with the notion that CD Projekt Red is all about being upfront and transparent with its fans, as it sounds like the developer believes that his company and other firms should have all of the information about its games be readily available to players. Iwinski shared some closing remarks on the issue of predatory practices within the industry to sum up his viewpoint, saying, "The moment [fans] feel you are reaching out for their wallet in any unfair way, they will be vocal about it. And—frankly speaking—I think it's good for the industry."

CD Projekt Red's next project, Cyberpunk 2077, is currently in development, but a release date and platforms have not been announced.

Source: PC Gamer