Loot Crates: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

For the last 7 months I have been a subscriber to Loot Crate. What is a Loot Crate you ask? Well essentially you pay people money to send you random things in a box every month. Honestly it's pretty exciting…until you open up the box every month. Then, you can go anywhere from "Oh that's pretty cool!" to "dafuq?" Loot Crate leans toward the geek culture crowd, so what you can expect inside one of said boxes usually has to deal with comics, video games and anything inside the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Allow me to share with you my collection of random trinkets.

The Good

 Easily the greatest gear coming out of these Loot Crates are T-shirts and figurines. They are the big ticket items that are a part of every crate. For me, the best T-shirt I got was the Ninja/Pirate one.

Pretty sweet, right? In total I got 4 shirts in 7 months and only 1 was meh—and that's only really because I care not for Voltron; if it was a Gundam shirt I would be wearing it all day, every day. The figurines were a bit more hit or miss. Got 2 Pop! vinyl figures which were cool (A Groot and this Joker/Batman hybrid) and then some really random desktop stuff like a Rockman helmet.

Also got that Leonardo

Pretty cool stuff. I would also clump in the single issue comics with the good. They have variant covers but it was cool getting a new #1 issue of a new series.

The Bad 

This encompasses all the stupid random stuff like: cheap sunglasses, a stack of $10,000 in space credits, Ryu's sash, socks, magnets, rub on tattoos, etc. Not all of it is bad per se, and some of the randomness is interesting, but it pales in comparison to the cool stuff and thus gets turned into pretty much filler for the box. I think the worst bit of filler I got were these stupid wings you are suppose to attach to your running shoes... it's lame as shit and I don't even want to know who would wear those.

The Ugly

Now the whole point of the Loot Crate is to get Loot, so when I get any sort of digital content, I scream foul. I want physical media! Not some code for a shitty digital halo comic or a code for some costume DLC to a game I don't even play! I've used one code (two if you count me unloading the costume on fellow blogger Charlie who actually plays Smite) and it was to download some mediocre tower defence game called Defence Grid on steam that I could most likely buy for $1-2 next steam sale. I talked about it a bit on the podcast a little while ago. There is a code for Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on PC, but I've already owned that game on PS3 and just really don't care to download it on PC even for free. Maybe I'll do a giveaway for it.

Final Thoughts

I did enjoy my time with the Loot Crates even if half my time is spent rummaging through filler. The exclusive T-shirts are awesome and I've also got tons of stuff to fill my desk at work with now, because you know, every good game dev needs to riddle his desk with the most pointless of nerd shit.

In the US Loot Crates cost $20 a month, which I think is a decent price-point. In Canada they cost $30, which is a little too steep for my tastes. Loot Crate isn't the only company around though: There are all different kinds of them and they all sell different stuff. Brandon subscribed to a BBQ sauce one for a month or two where he got sauce from all over the world. There's even the Bark Box which is for your dog. The concept is interesting. You just have to find the right one for you. Content and price wise.