I've been an active gamer for almost 25 years now, and I've played a good amount of games with loot boxes over the last decade. Big AAA titles (Overwatch, Apex Legends, Battlefront 2), digital card games (Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, Elder Scrolls Legends), and a bunch of bad mobile games I won't waste time mentioning. In nearly every single one of those games, I enjoy earning and opening loot boxes and seeing what kind of rewards are inside.

I think loot boxes scratch a sort of "test your luck" gambling itch without having to actually risk anything important. It's fun to open a digital reward with the chance of it being something really cool or rare. All of the boring common or blue rewards suck, but they only serve to enhance the excitement I feel when an orange or legendary reward pops up. It's fun to show off your digital rewards to your friends and other players, and it's fun when they in return show off what their luck got them.

I find myself losing interest in games that give away too many high-rarity rewards (such as LoR). Getting the highest level of reward regularly breaks the enjoyment of that reward. In contrast, games that have an extra high level of reward that I'll almost never see, such as Apex Legends' heirlooms or multiple golden legendaries in Hearthstone, always give me the slightest hope that I'll hit the jackpot when I open a pack, and that hope is really fun and driving to me.

As an important note, I DO NOT spend real money on loot boxes, nor do I feel a strong temptation to. I'm sure this strongly affects my view of loot boxes, and I understand this is where a lot of people struggle and where these types of mechanics are highly dangerous in the gaming community (especially for younger gamers). I also take issue when the loot box mechanic is so strongly tied to your power in game - this is a big part of why I stopped playing Hearthstone. But when the rewards are mostly cosmetic, and without the temptation of spending my real cash, loot boxes become a fun way to earn rewards in a game