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Loot Crate, the subscription service that will ship you a mystery box of geek-oriented goodies every month, is introducing a new package for video game fans called Loot Gaming.
"We've always been targeting both geeks and gamers in kind of a general kind of pop culture box," said Matthew Arevalo, co-founder of Loot Gaming, in a phone interview with Polygon. "This opens up a focus for us where it's not as much of a mix of geek and gaming."
The standard Loot Crate often includes gaming items, and the company has produced one-off limited edition crates for Fallout 4, Mass Effect and other games. But as you might expect, the Loot Gaming crate will feature nothing but gaming loot — Loot Crate is promising "collectibles, apparel, accessories and more from the biggest and best video game universes" — so it might work for you if you love Pikachu but couldn't care less about Doctor Who. (Loot Crate said it will continue to include gaming products in its standard crate.)
A subscription to Loot Gaming will deliver a box of four to six "premium items" every month — almost all of them exclusive to Loot Crate — for $25, which is $5 more than the regular Loot Crate. In addition to the collectibles themselves, the crate will include a booklet done up in the style of a game manual as well as a Loot Gaming pin. Each box will offer a total retail value of at least $60, according to Loot Crate.
Asked about the higher price, Arevalo explained that gaming-themed gear is generally more expensive than other kinds of branded merchandise. He added that charging $25 instead of $20 will allow Loot Gaming to deliver items that are "just on another level" above the company's typical class of merchandise, and will open up the ability to include "other apparel and accessory categories that are just kind of outside" the lower price point.
"The type of premium athletic socks that we've done for Destiny and Call of Duty and things like that, those are the type of items that people are going to be able to see in the Loot Gaming crate," said Arevalo.
"Legacy" is the theme for the inaugural Loot Gaming box, which will ship this spring. Arevalo told Polygon that it will contain items from Halo, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Street Fighter, and said that all of them are "100 percent exclusive" to Loot Gaming. The company will soon confirm other brands for the initial box.
Interested parties can sign up today to be notified of when Loot Gaming subscriptions will go live, and Arevalo stressed that quantities for the first month will be limited. "Not for the sake of, like, drama," he said, "but it is going to be a founder's box." Loot Crate has to buy materials "well in advance" because it makes every item from scratch, so the first Loot Gaming crate is already in production; the company isn't waiting to gauge interest.
Loot Gaming joins a number of spinoff subscriptions that Loot Crate runs in addition to its flagship service, such as Loot Anime and Loot Pets. More than half a million people subscribe to the default Loot Crate, and Arevalo said that the company expects some of them will either add Loot Gaming — many customers subscribe to multiple crate types — or switch over to it if they feel it's a "more focused offering to them."
"Our hope is that we're reaching the fans who may not be familiar with what Loot Crate is all about, and activating them as members of our community," said Arevalo.
