Brawl Stars

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Brawl Stars is a multiplayer mobile game created by Supercell. Supercell has made many successful mobile games in the past, such as Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. Brawl Stars was released in 2017 and is their most recent release. While Brawl Stars has been just as fun as Supercell’s past games, there are some ethical concerns regarding its business model.

Gameplay

Brawl Stars is considered a third person hero shooter game. Each character, also known as a brawler, has unique abilities, thus making it a hero shooter game. Even though Brawl Stars is a mobile game, it has quite a few game modes. The main game mode is called Gem Grab. This game mode is played with two teams of three. The objective is to collect the gems in the middle of the map. The first team to hold 10 gems wins the game. The other popular game modes are Brawl Ball, Bounty, and Showdown. Brawl Ball and Bounty are also played in teams of three while Showdown can be played individually or in pairs.

Brawlers

Through 5 seasons, the game has gone from its original 15 brawlers to 44 brawlers. While each brawler has their own unique abilities, they all fall into certain class types. The different class types are: sharpshooter, thrower, support, heavyweight, and fighter. All of these classes have their own strengths and weaknesses. Because most game modes are played in teams, having brawlers from class types that compliment each other well is very important.

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooters are essentially the snipers of Brawl Stars. All Sharpshooters have incredibly long range, but have a below average amount of health points. Sharpshooters also have one of the highest damage output of all the class types. While the game is quite balanced, never count out a Sharpshooter to change the flow of the game.

Thrower

Throwers are brawlers that throw projectiles. Similar to Sharpshooters, they have great range, but have very little health points. What sets Throwers apart from Sharpshooters is their ability to throw projectiles over walls. This makes throwers very versatile and playable on almost any map.

Support

This class type has the most variety in terms of unique skills. Some Support brawlers can heal their teammates while one brawler can create a sandstorm and make his teammates invisible within a certain area. Support brawlers compliment any other type of teammate, but they typically lack in their attack power.

Heavyweight

The Heavyweight brawlers all have a considerable amount of health points, but have extremely short range. Most can only hit a smaller range in front of them. Because of this, Heavyweights heavily rely on hiding in bushes and sneaking up on the opposing team.

Fighter

Fighters are the all-around class type. Most Fighters have above average health points and are above average in terms of damage output or attack range. While a Sharpshooter fighting a Heavyweight would heavily favor the Sharpshooter because of their superior range, a Fighter has no matchups where they clearly lose. A Fighter is always a reliable class type to strengthen your team.

Ethical Concerns with Business Model

Business Model

Like Supercell’s previous hit games, Brawl Stars follows the freemium game model. The word freemium is a combination of the word “free” and “premium.” These games are free to begin playing with in-app purchases as you play the game. These in-app purchases are usually for certain items or an exchange for in-game currency that can give you some sort of advantage. In Brawl Stars, an in-app purchase can be used to obtain one of the three in-game currencies, gems. Using gems, a player can exchange for gold, buy loot boxes, or even buy a new brawler.

Ethical Concerns

At first glance, the freemium model seems mutually beneficial for both the consumers and the creators. Consumers can still play the game free of charge, but can purchase items to make the game more fun. However, the hidden motives behind this business model is what makes it dangerous. Freemium games benefit off of “microtransactions.” Microtransaction is another word for in-app purchases for freemium games. Since the player is not paying for the game, they are making microtransactions for in-game items. If the creators of the game have the sole intention of monetizing as much as they can from these microtransactions then there is an ethical issue. One item that many freemium games have is the loot box. These boxes contain random items that are unknown to the user before purchasing it. Generally, the ethical issue around loot boxes is the underlying motive behind them. Games in the past did not include the percentages/likelihood of certain items appearing from a loot box. Intentional or not, this leads players to continuously purchase loot boxes in hopes to obtain certain items. Loot boxes in this context are clearly not ethical as they create a sort of gambling effect when opening boxes. Brawl Star’s version of loot boxes are called Brawl Boxes. Unlike other games Brawl Stars provides the likelihoods of certain items appearing from Brawl Boxes. This informs the player on their decision to spend real money on Brawl Boxes.