[HN Gopher] Loot boxes linked to problem gambling in new research
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Loot boxes linked to problem gambling in new research
Author : ComodoHacker
Score : 132 points
Date : 2021-04-03 11:45 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| gverrilla wrote:
| There was a very serious situation involving children and
| gambling and popular streamers on counter-strike global
| offensive. It was a scandal, but it could have been way bigger.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| When they are going to tackle dopamine addiction from sites like
| Instagram or Facebook and how much productivity the country loses
| to that? Not to mention other health risks and problems. All that
| compounded by paltry taxes paid by these platforms further
| sucking energy out of everyone.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I am Duke's complete lack of surprise.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| While loot boxes are pretty scummy what is this going to mean for
| CCGs like Pokemon and Magic that essentially sell loot boxes only
| in physical form? Or baseball cards? Trading cards in random
| packs have been a thing sold to children for 40+ years now.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| And still, I don't know anyone who ruined their life as a
| result of addiction to buying CCGs or baseball cards (and I do
| know that many of us learned a few things about economy thanks
| to them, when we were kids). I'm not saying it can't happen,
| maybe someone will dig out an example, but it would be an
| extremely rare edge case.
|
| In games with loot boxes, on the other hand, many people end up
| spending totally crazy amounts for their income and essentially
| ruin their life.
|
| It's true that there is a continuous scale between baseball
| cards and the casino, with several factors influencing the
| level of addictiveness (immediacy, amount of maximum reward,
| etc.) and it's not obvious where one should set the limit. But
| there should be a limit, and IMO it should be one that heavily
| regulates loot boxes (and in particular, forbids minors from
| buying them) and doesn't touch CCGs or baseball cards. Claiming
| that we should not touch loot boxes because CCGs are similar
| would be a textbook example of the continuum fallacy.
| mmacvicarprett wrote:
| I sounds to me that when you say that many people end up
| spending totally crazy amounts for their income and
| essentially ruin their life you are just referring to
| anecdotes (kid using mom phone with activated credit card and
| no protections), what makes you think this is a real and big
| problem?
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| I play a mobile game with loot boxes (although I don't buy
| them myself) and I am a frequent user of community forums
| where players talk about the game. Stories about people
| with modest income spending thousands a month, and
| sometimes losing their partner for this reason, are very
| common. Often a thread comes up on the matter and many
| people chime in with stories of that kind.
|
| Of course, it's still anecdotes. It's impossible to have
| actual data, as obviously the developers aren't going to
| give us statistics on how many people are spending
| unhealthy amounts of money in the game. But my impression
| (and the impression of most players I know) is that it's
| quite widespread, and I'm not talking about kids, but
| adults that just don't know when to stop.
| ljm wrote:
| Those can at least hold value over time as you're buying
| something tangible that can be traded or sold. And I don't get
| the feeling that going to the local newsagent and buying a pack
| with your pocket money sets you up for the same kind of
| addiction that microtransactions and loot boxes can.
|
| I don't really think that they're equivalent. If you were to
| make a Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh game that encouraged you to buy
| digital versions of those packs to make any progress in the
| game, then I think there would be a better comparison. The fact
| that those are online-only means that the house can essentially
| rig the game on the fly and engage in many more unscrupulous
| practices to keep you hooked. Made all the more easy by having
| a payment method directly linked.
|
| It doesn't mean that physical CCGs have no addictive
| properties, of course.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| Yeah, there's more friction to having to go to a store and
| buy cards but there is also friction in having to go to a
| casino or bar to find a blackjack table or VLT.
|
| What is progress? To compete in the top 1% of Overwatch you
| don't need to buy loot boxes at all. To compete in the top 1%
| of paper Magic or Pokemon you absolutely need better cards
| that have to be acquired from random packs at some point
| either by you, an LGS or somebody that sold it to an LGS.
| akersten wrote:
| > Those can at least hold value over time as you're buying
| something tangible that can be traded or sold.
|
| Ironically, that makes TCG even _more_ like gambling, in
| contrast to loot boxes which do not provide a cash-value
| payout.
| bashinator wrote:
| I'd argue that to the contrary, loot boxes have
| demonstrated that having a cash-value payout isn't
| necessary to elicit gambling behavior in people.
| 14 wrote:
| I think you make a good point and perhaps one day we will see
| those regulated as well. All we are missing is a news story of
| some kid who stole his parents money to buy a bunch of these
| cards and a parent claim it is gambling and we will see legal
| action.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Trading cards at least hold their value to a certain extent
| (you can resell them if you're no longer using them) and are a
| physical object that doesn't depend on a "cloud".
|
| Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic The Gathering cards are still just
| as good as they were when they first came out, where as a lot
| of games from ~10-15 years ago no longer have a functional
| multiplayer mode because the servers hosted by the publisher
| are down.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Buying a CCG pack is a rather detached process; you fork over
| you money and you get a foil wrapped packet. You unwrap it
| afterwards and that's fun but it's clear that an ordinary
| purchase is occurring. That's much less stimulating than the
| glitzy animation and audio one gets that is carefully designed
| to give kids the impression that something special and exciting
| is happening and to spark that bit of hope that they'll get
| something good. Add on top of that the additional
| animation/voice-over when they do get something good to reward
| them and it's therefore not surprising that children are
| strongly attracted to it.
| salamandersauce wrote:
| There is absolutely glitz in card opening. No there's no
| sparkling lights and sound effects emitted from packs but
| look at hyper rares or secret rares in Pokemon for example.
| It's glitz. Special card frames, new holo designs. Always
| hoping you're going to get that Rainbow Charizard and not
| crap. Putting the rare at the end of the pack to increase
| anticipation. Magic has recently extended what is possible to
| get in packs the same way too.
| [deleted]
| richwater wrote:
| I don't really think is a strong argument.
|
| You can present it wrapped in whatever glitz (or lack of)
| that you want, but the process is pretty much the same.
|
| You're exchanging currency for a chance at getting something
| from a known subset of items.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| There are countless adages like " _Presentation matters_ "
| in business, " _You eat with your eyes first_ " in cooking,
| " _Dress for success_ " in interpersonal relations, etc.
| that all boil down to how appearances and the pomp and
| ceremony of an interaction can elevate it into something
| special. That's very well established.
|
| Regarding currency, the real-world monetary cost is kept
| discreetly out of sight of the player, much like tokens are
| used in casinos, as part of the sleight of hand. They're
| not exchanging cold, hard cash; no, no, that would be
| crass. They're merely exchanging "gems", "crystals",
| "orbs", etc.
| hakfoo wrote:
| Fundamentally, I always wondered if the movement away from
| physical currency-- whether it's in-pp payments, general
| ecommerce or just the growth of credit/debit-- has a
| psychological impact on how we spend.
|
| If you have to hand over some number of physical tokens,
| and actively see your stash of them diminish, it's going to
| hit differently than letting someone handle your card, and
| then a number that you have to log into the bank to even
| see goes down.
|
| I see ads for programs where you give your kids their
| allowance on a prepaid debit card, so it could get to the
| point where you could reach maturity without ever touching
| a dime. Will those kids be as frugal as the ones who got
| notes?
| DecoPerson wrote:
| There's a huge difference.
|
| You could write a terminal program in which people can buy
| and open loot boxes; I guarantee you it won't be as
| "effective" as a fancy loot box ceremony in an AAA video
| game.
|
| (I put effective in quotes because it depends on what axes
| you're looking at.)
|
| Pokemon cards are clearly different enough is enough ways
| that they don't cause the same amount of harm to anywhere
| near as many people as other forms of gambling do (such a
| pokies machines in bars and loot boxes in video games).
|
| Sure, the core process may be the same, but that's not all
| that matters. It's how it connects to everything else and
| what the overall resulting effect is.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| I think a big part of the difference is that a kid is
| much more aware of the money involved when they hand
| physical cash to someone.
|
| It's very different than having a number invisibly go
| down from your playstation gift card or a number
| invisibly go up on their parent's credit card.
| rriepe wrote:
| That's the old way of doing it. Now you open it years later
| on a stream in front of thousands of people.
| spinach wrote:
| Those are at least finite, limited by production and stock.
| Digital items can be nearly infinite.
| mycologos wrote:
| "Finite" doesn't seem like a meaningful distinction here, if
| you're a kid at the limits of "production and stock" buying
| trading cards, you probably have a problem already?
| david2ndaccount wrote:
| They are bad as well. I remember stealing as a child to fuel my
| purchases of Magic cards...
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| To my knowledge, pokemon card packs are not designed to be as
| addictive and easy to spend money on as possible in the same
| vein as loot boxes in video games. Additionally, the
| requirement to go to a physical store (or order online and wait
| upwards of a week for shipping) is likely a mitigating factor.
| j4yav wrote:
| > A spokesman for Ukie, the national games industry body, said
| that game companies had "already taken action" on the issue.
|
| Ah, well I'm sure it's all just fine then.
| grawprog wrote:
| There's one mobile game I play semi-regularly. It's a Moba style
| game riddled with gacha style events and gambling and such for
| heroes and skins.
|
| They regularly have these roulette style events which usually
| have the brand new shiny skin of the moment as a prize among a
| bunch of other random prizes. Typically, they'll give you a
| couple free spins, usually after completing some in game tasks,
| you'll inevitably win the worst of the prizes, leaving a bunch
| more crap, and the one good prize, only now, the cost has jumped
| to like a real dollar(in digital diamonds of course) a spin and
| increases in cost with each spin.
|
| The games are rigged so that the good prize is always the last
| one you'll win, pretty much every time.
|
| I remember one time, when there was a particularly fancy shiny
| new skin, I used up the free spins, checked out the rules to see
| how much it would have cost me to keep going until I got the
| shiny skin for sure...
|
| It was going to be over $50...for an item that literally does
| nothing but change your appearance.
|
| The thing is, I ended up seeing not a small amount of people
| already playing with the skin on the first day of the event...as
| in they just pumped a bunch of money into the game immediately
| without really thinking about it.
|
| It's constant though. Last time I played it they had 3 similar
| roulette events going on at once that would have cost over $100
| to win them all.
|
| Then there's the amount of people on there who seem like they're
| kids who've obviously been playing the gacha shit and spending a
| bunch of money on these things.
|
| Hell, that game even teaches kids about leasing. They sometimes
| have an 'event' where you can pay a small amount of diamonds(real
| money) every day for a month or so for the new shiny skin and as
| long as you play using it every day for the lease period, you get
| to keep it...again it works out to cost almost twice as much as
| just going to the in game shop and just buying a skin...but
| people seem to do it.
|
| I probably went off on a bit of a ramble about this, but that
| game's my only real experience with these modern day lootbox
| gambling style things and I still find it unbelievable that it's
| so blatantly scammy. It doesn't lie about it either. Every event
| explains in the rules, you're probably going to lose a bunch of
| money and you're going to have to basically win everything.
|
| But these events must be popular, they happen constantly and I
| always see other players who've clearly taken part.
| dalu wrote:
| Cookie Wall, unreadable
| smcleod wrote:
| Seems to work fine on iOS in Australia, where are you located?
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| In other news, water is also wet!
|
| But in all seriousness, what these companies have done is take
| gambling to a newer, worst level. It's just packaged different,
| but I'm not really opposed to it unless with minors.
|
| A more interesting story is the shifting market. Casino-gaming
| and sports betting is basically stagnant on innovation and growth
| because of regulation -- trapped to bubble cities or locations --
| while tech companies are allowed to slap a cute UI on basically
| the same thing and run wild unregulated anywhere in the world via
| the Internet.
|
| Does anyone know of any casino-gaming companies innovating in
| this space like tech? Would be fun to walk into a casino and have
| it be a real world game experience.
| Tenoke wrote:
| >Does anyone know of any casino-gaming companies innovating in
| this space like tech?
|
| Not quite what you asked but prediction markets are perhaps the
| only gambling space that's both useful and innovating but sadly
| some jurisdictions like the US are especially harsh on it.
|
| Crypto prediction markets like poly.market or augur (finally
| picking up steam) come to mind.
| tootahe45 wrote:
| > Does anyone know of any casino-gaming companies innovating in
| this space like tech?
|
| Cryptocurrency exchanges are the new casinos, and to some
| extent apps like robin-hood.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| yeah, and there are literally crypto gambling games out there
| too. I'd really advise not to play any of them, though
| soulofmischief wrote:
| They also target children. And they don't just target them.
| These people have read every book there is about emotional and
| social manipulation tactics in order to hook people.
| joezydeco wrote:
| I know a lot of gaming (as in Vegas) developers that were _way_
| into Facebook games and slots back in the mid 2010s, on the
| hopes that FB would eventually allow you to cash out FarmVille-
| type points into USD.
|
| It's pretty apparent that this wasn't going to happen under
| governmental watch, since it's a literal opening of the barn
| doors to federally-endorsed gambling. So the developers lost
| interest and went elsewhere.
|
| AFAIK none of the CuteUI mobile games can covert back to cash,
| and luckily the idea of a rare skin or weapon has taken the
| place of cash.
| rini17 wrote:
| Maybe it can't really be improved. Do their clientele really
| want improved roulette or slots? Or even something completely
| different/complicated like a RPG? I doubt that.
| sneak wrote:
| There are people who really, really love the video slots that
| were designed in the 80s for CRTs. They've been upgraded and
| ported to new platforms and now run on LCDs, but they don't
| dare change the game or graphics because there are total
| diehards that are into the specifics just the way they are.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >In other news, water is also wet!
|
| I dislike this mentality that I often see. Common sense can be
| misleading and humans like to deceive themselves. Studies on
| things that are obvious often yield surprising results.
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| Agree, just playful commentary here.
|
| A news article insinuating morals about an industry of
| ridiculously paid engineers creating the most addictive
| possible behavior, through extremely optimized gambling
| mechanisms, being posted to a forum of other ridiculously
| high paid engineers.
|
| It deserves a little jest...
|
| Edit: To be clear, I don't think being paid well is bad --
| it's obviously good thing. I don't think working for big tech
| is bad -- it's also a good thing. Just when stuff like this
| gets posted, the info really deserves "all the cards on the
| table". This in particular is extremely greed driven dark
| corner of tech from the bottom workers to the top workers and
| honestly I don't blame any of them.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| >being posted to a forum where those very engineers
| congregate
|
| ftfy
| WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote:
| The point of the comments were to bring serious
| discussion to tech's presence in the industry of feasting
| on humanities worst behaviors -- not to poke fun of
| article or research.
| alexashka wrote:
| > Studies on things that are obvious often yield surprising
| results.
|
| No, they don't. Empirically false.
| eric_h wrote:
| Empirically false that they "often" yield surprising
| results - i think the adjective "occasionally" would be
| more correct.
| [deleted]
| wpietri wrote:
| > Does anyone know of any casino-gaming companies innovating in
| this space like tech?
|
| A while back I was in Vegas. I don't gamble but some friends
| did, so I spent hours wandering the casino floors. With my
| product hat on, I could see so much to improve in the computer-
| driven games like slot machines. So many ideas for making
| things more fun.
|
| What stopped me was watching faces. Most people on casino
| floors are not having fun. They looked miserable, desperate,
| compelled. I wasn't looking at play, but addiction. That's not
| something I wanted to make more of.
| acomjean wrote:
| I've seen that at the slots. People just staring.
|
| what got me was I saw someone win, the sounds and light where
| amazing, but I think I was more excited than the winner.
|
| If you play a lot maybe you get immune to the sensory
| overload that is a casino.
|
| If you gamble the game I like to play is craps. It's more
| social and a more fun way to loose your money.
| dade_ wrote:
| I was just reading about this phenomenon. It seems these
| machines have been designed to create flow in the gambler's
| mind. If the win disrupts this flow it is actually annoying
| to the player.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5976927/slot-machines-
| casinos-a...
| sokoloff wrote:
| A craps table that has recently produced several wins for
| players (colloquially a "hot table") is an amazing social
| experience.
|
| I prefer poker for a combination of mental exertion, social
| banter, and entertainment. You don't have to be great at it
| for it to be a very slow bleed of chips and at a lot of
| low-limit tables, the other players are so fundamentally
| unsound that you can have a break-even or positive
| expected-value from fairly basic play that you could learn
| in a few hours.
| eric_h wrote:
| I'm mediocre at poker but generally turn a profit in
| casino poker rooms. The trick is to never go up against
| the sharks unless you've got the nuts (for those not
| familiar, "the nuts" is a poker term that means the best
| possible hand on the table)
|
| I guess you also have to have developed the ability to
| identify who the sharks are at a poker table.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| The saddest thing I ever saw with my own two eyes was at a
| blackjack table in a smaller, rural casino. I was at a table
| with my sister and we were playing $5 and $10 rounds.
|
| A man walked in with a duffel bag on his shoulder. It was a
| chilly day outside but he was in just jeans and a T-shirt. He
| walked up to the table, pulled a $100 bill out of an
| envelope, and put it on the table for a cash play.
|
| Busted. -$100.
|
| He pulled out another bill and played another round.
|
| 17, dealer had 20. -$100.
|
| Third and final bill.
|
| 20. Dealer blackjack.
|
| He didn't say a word, or show dismay, or really have any
| expression at all. Just slung his bag back over his shoulder
| and walked out.
| eco wrote:
| That actually sounds like a much more healthy way to gamble
| than spending hours at the table/machine chasing dopamine
| hits. You can plan how much you are willing to lose in
| advance and more easily stick to it (rather than after
| hours of the game and casino feeding you chemicals).
| rriepe wrote:
| He probably _was_ a gambling addict. They develop weird
| routines like this to deal with it. I knew a guy that
| would just walk in and play one round of roulette with
| everything he had planned to spend there, then walk out
| win or lose.
| indigochill wrote:
| To his credit, if you're compelled to play roulette,
| that's the optimal way to play. Every spin is stacked
| against the player (that is, the payout * the odds of
| hitting a particular bet are all less than 100%), so
| minimizing the number of spins minimizes the stacking of
| the odds against winning.
| rriepe wrote:
| Yep, that was basically what was going on in his head. He
| was compelled to go there and gamble but had some control
| over how. The whole thing reminded me of a methadone
| clinic.
| j4yav wrote:
| Joylessly losing as much as possible as efficiently as
| possible, and then leaving? What's the healthy part? Or
| do you mean more that it's less acutely harmful than
| enjoying the games while you lose?
| glouwbug wrote:
| No, it's more like he sold his coat for $300 and left
| with the last of his belongings in the duffel bag
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Sure, I guess. The pall it put everybody under killed the
| table, though. Even the dealer was sad for him, and I
| assume a dealer at a rural U.S. casino has _seen things_.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| The benefit that the tech industry has is that each person
| carrier their addiction in their pocket and are mostly alone
| when they look miserable, desperate, and compelled.
| phreack wrote:
| I used to go to casinos with the idea of spending some money
| to have a good time interacting with pretty machines, lights,
| other people -- breaking even would be a win because of the
| fun times. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize
| what I actually wanted was to go play at an Arcade. There
| aren't any in my city anymore though, and that always makes
| me sad.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _With my product hat on, I could see so much to improve in
| the computer-driven games like slot machines._
|
| Everything about these machines has been painstakingly A/B
| tested to maximise their intended purpose - there was nothing
| that you saw that would be considered an improvement by those
| machines owners.
| anonymousab wrote:
| A lot of machines in a casino may be quite ancient and we
| learn new things about manipulating each other every day.
| wpietri wrote:
| If your point is that the intended owners don't care about
| player experience except to the extent it maximizes
| revenue, I agree. But I disagree that there's no possible
| improvement in those terms.
|
| A/B testing is great for incremental improvement. It's bad
| for major innovation. Which is why a lot of the pioneering
| work in engineered addiction is not being done in Vegas but
| in "game" companies. I note that "gaming" use to mean
| gambling [1], but now the very term is being taken over.
| This is classic Innovator's Dilemma territory, where an
| existing micro-optimized industry segment ignores major
| changes for way too long.
|
| [1] E.g., https://gaming.nv.gov/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
| fortran77 wrote:
| Exactly right. This is like all the people here who thought
| they could unstick the Ever Given.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I think even doing this to adults is reprehensible. And what
| makes a 17 year old not able to manage it but an 18 or 19 yr
| old is free reign? As I get older, the more I realize we're all
| just kids but a little bigger. But that shift from being a
| teenager to an adult didn't make me substantially more able to
| cope with addiction.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Paid loot boxes in video games come from Japan, a territory
| where gambling is illegal (except for pachinko parlors, where
| gambling with added steps takes place) and they're known as
| gacha.
|
| They got very good at improving the system to make it
| increasingly addictive, eventually creating "kompu gacha", a
| system so addictive that it left thousands of families with
| telephone bills in the thousands of dollars. That's when
| regulators intervened and now kompu gacha is illegal.
|
| Loot boxes are meant to be addictive and make you lose track of
| your spending.
| viraptor wrote:
| > Among the authors' recommendations were that any regulation has
| extremely precise definitions to avoid any possible workarounds
|
| I find this surprising - shouldn't it go the other way? The more
| strictly defined your law is, the more space it creates for
| "tweak just this bit to technically comply". More vague
| definitions are closer to "you know what we meant" position.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| In context, they mean the law should target any gambling
| mechanic as opposed to banning "loot boxes". Otherwise the
| gambling mechanic will come back with another mechanism, say a
| lucky companion that increases your chances of finding a pot of
| gold at the end of each rainbow.
| AlexanderDhoore wrote:
| As I understand it the law in Anglo Saxon countries is closer
| to the "precise definitions" system, while European Napoleonic
| Code law is closer to "you know what we mean". In the US you
| must follow the letter of the law. In France you must follow
| the spirit of the law. (I'm no expert. So please tell me if
| this isn't correct.)
| corty wrote:
| It depends on the area of the law and the field of
| application. E.g. criminal law and stuff that is meant to cut
| into civil liberties is very precise and letter-of-the-law
| style. Any criminal act needs to be defined in the law, you-
| know-what-we-mean isn't acceptable there. On the other hand
| consumer-protection, environmental regulations and stuff like
| that is interpreted more in a you-know-what-we-mean-style. Of
| course there are areas where both styles overlap.
| diimdeep wrote:
| IMHO all these free to play MOBA games designed like a crack and
| feel like TNG episode[0].
|
| Think about what these companies hypothetically could do with
| data they have on players, combined with access to voice from
| voice chat they can generate psychological profiles, and easily
| manipulate people mood by generating different loot or putting
| certain kinds of people in team together, you could run entire
| social experiments with 15min iteration time. (typical match
| length, while thousands matches happen in the parallel)
|
| I am not saying they do that.
|
| But from personal experience in these games I feel that
| matchmaking is somewhat resembles Conditioning[1] in the way that
| they put you in teams, 5x losing, 1x winning, reinforcing your
| addiction to game.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_...
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Operant_conditio...
| akersten wrote:
| I don't like loot boxes. But I'm not egotistical enough to say
| that just because I don't like something, it should be banned.
|
| This is the same moral panic that would have made arcades and
| baseball cards illegal. Those both follow the model of "put money
| in, maybe you'll get a reward." Loot boxes are the 21st century
| innovation of that mechanic, and if you're going to make an
| argument about "flashing lights and rigged games enticing young
| minds" then you better be prepared to argue that Dave & Busters
| should be shut down too, because that has all of the fanfare and
| phycological reward structure of loot boxes, _plus_ physical
| sensations and sensory overload, _plus_ cash value payouts, and
| yet the kids are alright.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Considering policies that prevent someone from enriching
| themselves from the ruin of others isn't just based on "not
| liking it." It's a fundamental decision about the ethics of the
| society that we want.
|
| Basically everyone agrees with that which is why the question
| is over how much enrichment should we allow from how much ruin.
| sneak wrote:
| The fact that "the ruin of others" is entirely consensual
| means that it is indeed based just on "not liking it".
|
| No victim, no crime.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Go spend some time with people who have had "consensual"
| addiction ruin their lives and tell me there is no victim
| again.
|
| Thus doesn't mean you have to make addictive things
| illegal, but it does mean that you should investigate
| mitigation strategies and regulate the industry to prevent
| deliberate exploitation of these vulnerable people.
| sneak wrote:
| I've spent a lot of time with addicts who have chosen to
| stop, and a lot of time with addicts who have chosen to
| continue. To insinuate that the addict has no control or
| isn't actively making a choice is to dismiss the large
| percentage of addicts who decide the other way and stop.
|
| There is no victim when someone chooses to harm
| themselves, any more than there is a victim when someone
| chooses to better themselves.
| acomjean wrote:
| Back I the day I played "ultima 3" . In the game as you explore
| and defeat foes and monsters you find chests with random stuff
| (free!). But about 10% or so had traps which would injure or
| poison a member or your party.
|
| Perhaps I learned a valuable lesson..
| ilamont wrote:
| Doesn't Fallout have booby traps on some locked chests or
| computer terminals?
| disgruntled101 wrote:
| Lootboxes were the beginning of the end for the gaming industry.
| All the visionaries have moved on from triple A games and now its
| just by the numbers cookie cutter formula games with different
| underhanded tactics to extract as much money as possible from
| victims.
| andybak wrote:
| Either you have a very narrow definition of triple A or you're
| somewhat overstating the problem.
|
| I'm not saying the problem isn't bad but "all AAA games are
| cookie cutter money extractors" seems somewhat of an
| exaggeration.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I'd argue this was only the end of the AAA industry, as they
| all shifted towards monetization, but has catalyzed the growth
| of indie games -- which are more expressive and artistic than
| ever before.
|
| Games like Outer Wilds removed any notion for what a game could
| look and feel and play like, for me
| dalbasal wrote:
| I think behavioural research like this has value. But, once we're
| speaking in terms of nudges & clustering... I feel the terms are
| ambiguous for scientific language.
|
| That is... This probably is useful to the gambling regulator,
| addiction counselors and such, especially if similar results are
| found in similar studies. OTOH, they may not hold true in a
| different country, or 7 years from now, etc.
|
| Conversely... I wouldn't be surprised to find many gambling ads
| surrounding loot box videos on youtube.
|
| The orthodox scientific approach is to seek generalities. Any
| clustering of loot box consumption & problem gambling exists on
| the plane of generalities that the UKGC or addiction charity
| operate in. It's an awkward place for science though.
|
| Academic pathologies notwithstanding, replication means something
| different in behavioural sciences... Either that or behavioural
| science has to be confined to a fairly small realm. Ultimately,
| what facebook do with their optimization algorithms (or any
| startup a/b testing) is similar to what gambleaware do. Companies
| have less need for formal publishing than NGOs, GOs and such.
| They need a way of informing decisions that convinces the boss,
| not the world.
|
| Not sure where I'm going with this.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Since loot boxes are not allowed in Belgium. I sold a couple of
| them and got >50EUR ( in relativity out how much I earned with a
| online game, that's 100%)
|
| That's quite a lot of money for something useless. Even the steam
| market has some stock characteristics.
|
| https://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/730/AWP%20%7C%20A...
| yawnxyz wrote:
| loot boxes are designed / deconstructed gambling devices... but
| also, we see "loot box" design in loads of regular companies too,
| like when you buy plane tickets or in services where you
| literally open up a box e.g. Blue Apron
| Monotonic wrote:
| Those are very different things. The whole point behind loot
| boxes is that you never know what you're going to get, and it
| might be quite rare/valuable. With both Blue Apron like boxes
| and airplane tickets you know and select exactly what you're
| going to get.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I think with airplane tickets the costs can be quite
| variable, but you're right it doesn't make you want to buy
| more boxes.
|
| With Blue Apron, the quality of ingredients always ends up
| shifting... some weeks were terrible, and it was always like
| "oh, maybe next week's box will be better?" In the end, it
| always ended up not being worth the price of subscription. I
| think sometimes they'd skimp on the cost/quality of a box,
| and then lead you to think that staying subscribed for the
| next week would be worth it.
|
| Not completely analogous to loot boxes, but I think in both
| cases the design is still influenced by variable rewards
| systems, just not as obvious as loot boxes.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| > it always ended up not being worth the price of
| subscription.
|
| I mean, this is a given, right? They can't make money
| unless the price of the contents + shipping is less than
| what they charge you.
|
| Although, this isn't obvious at sign up.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I've seen relatively low income people drop hundreds of dollars a
| day on loot boxes in games like CS:GO. Until I saw it myself I
| couldn't understand how these companies were making money. I've
| also seen accounts with thousands of dollars worth of digital
| items. I don't want to police behavior too much, but I wish there
| was some transparency for those people to see how much money
| they've put in to get to that point. I assume they must have put
| in roughly 5x what they own.
| chapium wrote:
| Its not your place to police their behavior because they are
| adults, not children.
| [deleted]
| socon wrote:
| Actually, since it creates destructive externalities, it is
| my place.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| and its my place to make sure people like you know their
| place.
| socon wrote:
| pick:
|
| Stop regulating externalities, including environmental
| regulations, civil rights regulations, etc
|
| Regulate externalities, including socially corrosive
| behavior like gambling, alcohol, excessive drug use,
| pornography, etc.
|
| It's incoherent to regulate the ones you dislike and
| pretend the ones you like have no externalities.
| burnished wrote:
| Well, you're doing a pretty rubbish job at it. If
| anything you've just given some one more eloquent the
| chance to convince an audience of their position, while
| refusing to yourself offer up any coherent argument. Your
| strategy just seems counter productive is what I'm
| getting at.
| Mirioron wrote:
| Here's what I don't understand: where do children get their
| money from to compulsively spend on lootboxes?
| leroman wrote:
| Unsuspecting parents that are not technically inclined
| enough to block it in advance, happened to my sister.
| sneak wrote:
| Wait until you see the stats on cigarettes, alcohol, weed,
| prostitutes, and junk food.
|
| Video games are in a market with lots of healthy competition
| for dollars.
| retrac wrote:
| All those are heavily regulated (and usually taxed) in most
| developed countries.
|
| Like I lean a bit libertarian, but I'm not sure society could
| handle alcohol being sold for its cost of production at every
| corner store -- less than $1 a litre of 94% ABV.
| mmacvicarprett wrote:
| "limited time offers and special deals", like literally any
| company selling something out there.
|
| "The report said that many games use a "psychological nudge" to
| encourage people to buy loot boxes - such as the fear of missing
| out on limited-time items or special deals"
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