2016 was the year of lootboxes in video games

A lot of gaming trends rose to prominence in 2016, but here at GamesBeat, we’ve focused on the one trend we saw again and again as we look back on the year.

Lootboxes were the biggest gaming trend of 2016. These are the boxes that players open up to get special goodies in games like Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Overwatch, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and more. Sometimes lootboxes look like digital boxes and sometimes they come in the form of card packs. They occasionally feature hats and costumes for your characters or they include upgrades, creatures, and weapons crucial to gameplay, but — no matter what — players can purchase them with real money.