scholarly journals Are Loot Boxes Gambling? Random Reward Mechanisms in Video Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Kristian Lundedal Nielsen ◽  
Paweł Grabarczyk
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Real World ◽  
Reward Mechanisms

In this paper we investigate the phenomenon colloquially known as “loot boxes”. Loot boxes became a hot topic towards the end of 2017 when several legislative bodies proposed that they were essentially gambling mechanisms and should therefore be legislated as such. We argue that the term “loot box” and the phenomena it covers are not sufficiently precise for academic use, and instead introduce the notion of “random reward mechanisms” (RRMs). We offer a categorization of RRMs, which distinguishes between RRMs that are either “isolated” from real-world economies or “embedded” in them. This distinction will be useful in discussions about loot boxes in general, but specifically when it comes to the question of whether or not they represent instances of gambling. We argue that all classes of RRMs have gambling-like features, and may be problematic in different ways, but that only one class can be considered to be genuine gambling.

scholarly journals Which Implementations of Loot Boxes Constitute Gambling? A Legal Perspective on Random Reward Mechanisms

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon Y. Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Real World ◽  
Potential Harm ◽  
Game Mechanics ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Reward Mechanisms ◽  
Repeat Purchase ◽  
Psychology Literature ◽  
Reward Mechanism

Loot boxes (LBs) are a contemporary monetisation method in video games that relies on randomisation to encourage repeat purchase by player-consumers. The psychology literature has drawn tentative conclusions on LBs’ connection with gambling. Academics and regulators have examined whether or not LBs constitute gambling in law based on two conditions: whether or not they cost real-world money; and whether or not they offer rewards that can be transferred to other players and are consequently worth real-world money. With two exceptions, the existing literature generally accepts that both conditions must be satisfied for a certain implementation of LBs to constitute gambling. By being overly restrictive with their definitions, the existing literature and regulatory opinions have failed to subject different implementations of randomised game mechanics to sufficient scrutiny in order to identify their potential harm, and have therefore failed to ensure that player-consumers, especially children, are appropriately protected. With a UK law perspective, this paper applies Nielsen and Grabarczyk’s Random Reward Mechanism categorisation framework (2019) for differentiating between various implementations of LBs to example games and argues that all implementations of LBs are potentially harmful because they either involve real-world currency and constitute gambling, or normalise gambling behaviours, and should be regulated.

Only problem gamblers spend less money when loot boxes are removed from a game: A before and after study of Heroes of the Storm

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Problem Gamblers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Gambling Severity ◽  
Reliable Correlation ◽  
Before And After Study

Loot boxes are items in video games that may be paid for with real-world money, but which contain randomised contents. There is a reliable correlation between loot box spending and problem gambling severity: The more money gamers spend on loot boxes, the more severe their problem gambling tends to be. However, it is unclear whether this link represents a case in which loot box spending causes problem gambling; a case in which the gambling-like nature of loot boxes cause problem gamblers to spend more money; or whether it simply represents a case in which there is a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, nonspecific to loot boxes.The multiplayer video game Heroes of the Storm recently removed loot boxes. In order to better understand links between loot boxes and problem gambling, we conducted an analysis of players of Heroes of the Storm (n=112) both before and after the removal of loot boxes.There were a complex pattern of results. In general, when loot boxes were removed from Heroes of the Storm, problem gamblers appeared to spend significantly less money in-game in contrast to other groups. These results suggest that the presence of loot boxes in a game may lead to problem gamblers spending more money in-game. It therefore seems possible that links between loot box spending and problem gambling are not due to a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, but rather are to do with specific features of loot boxes themselves.

scholarly journals Brief use of a specific gun in a violent game does not affect attitudes towards that gun

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 160310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Hilgard ◽  
Christopher R. Engelhardt ◽  
Bruce D. Bartholow
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Real World ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Aggressive Behaviour ◽  
Product Placement ◽  
Gun Violence ◽  
Product Evaluations ◽  
Gun Ownership

Although much attention has been paid to the question of whether violent video games increase aggressive behaviour, little attention has been paid to how such games might encourage antecedents of gun violence. In this study, we examined how product placement, the attractive in-game presentation of certain real-world firearm brands, might encourage gun ownership, a necessary antecedent of gun violence. We sought to study how the virtual portrayal of a real-world firearm (the Bushmaster AR-15) could influence players' attitudes towards the AR-15 specifically and gun ownership in general. College undergraduates ( N  = 176) played one of four modified video games in a 2 (gun: AR-15 or science-fiction control) × 2 (gun power: strong or weak) between-subjects design. Despite collecting many outcomes and examining many potential covariates and moderators, experimental assignment did little to influence outcomes of product evaluations or purchasing intentions with regard to the AR-15. Attitudes towards public policy and estimation of gun safety were also not influenced by experimental condition, although these might have been better tested by comparison against a no-violence control condition. By contrast, gender and political party had dramatic associations with all outcomes. We conclude that, if product placement shapes attitudes towards firearms, such effects will need to be studied with stronger manipulations or more sensitive measures.

Waltzing on Rooftops and Cobblestones

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-55
Author(s):  
Ailbhe Warde-Brown
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
World History ◽  
Interaction Model ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Open World ◽  
Integrated Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between music, sound, space, and time plays a crucial role in attempts to define the concept of “immersion” in video games. Isabella van Elferen’s ALI (affect-literacy-interaction) model for video game musical immersion offers one of the most integrated approaches to reading connections between sonic cues and the “magic circle” of gameplay. There are challenges, however, in systematically applying this primarily event-focused model to particular aspects of the “open-world” genre. Most notable is the dampening of narrative and ludic restrictions afforded by more intricately layered textual elements, alongside open-ended in-game environments that allow for instances of more nonlinear, exploratory gameplay. This article addresses these challenges through synthesizing the ALI model with more spatially focused elements of Gordon Calleja’s player involvement model, exploring sonic immersion in greater depth via the notion of spatiotemporal involvement. This presents a theoretical framework that broadens analysis beyond a simple focus on the immediate narrative or ludic sequence. Ubisoft’s open-world action-adventure franchise Assassin’s Creed is a particularly useful case study for the application of this concept. This is primarily because of its characteristic focus on blending elements of the historical game and the open-world game through its use of real-world history and geography. Together, the series’s various diegetic and nondiegetic sonic elements invite variable degrees of participation in “historical experiences of virtual space.” The outcome of this research intends to put such intermingled expressions of space, place, and time at the forefront of a ludomusicological approach to immersion in the open-world genre.

scholarly journals Regulating Loot Boxes as Gambling? Towards a Combined Legal and Self-Regulatory Consumer Protection Approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon Y. Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Consumer Protection ◽  
Real World ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Regulatory Approach ◽  
Psychology Literature ◽  
Harmful Effects ◽  
A Current

Loot boxes represent a popular and prevalent contemporary monetisation innovation in video games that offers the purchasing player-consumer, who always pays a set amount of money for each attempt, the opportunity to obtain randomised virtual rewards of uncertain in-game and real-world value. Loot boxes have been and continue to be scrutinised by regulators and policymakers because their randomised nature is akin to gambling. The regulation of loot boxes is a current and challenging international public policy and consumer protection issue. This paper reviews the psychology literature on the potential harms of loot boxes and applies the behavioural economics literature in order to identify the potentially abusive nature and harmful effects of loot boxes, which justify their regulation. This paper calls on the industry to publish loot box spending data and cooperate with independent empirical research to avoid overregulation. By examining existing regulation, this paper identifies the flaws of the ‘regulate loot boxes as gambling’ approach and critiques the alternative consumer protection approach of adopting ethical game design, such as disclosing the probabilities of obtaining randomised rewards and setting maximum spending limits. This paper recommends a combined legal and self-regulatory approach: the law should set out minimal acceptable standards of consumer protection and industry self-regulation should thrive to achieve an even higher standard.

Categorisation of New Classes of Digital Interaction

Leonardo ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tack Woo ◽  
Kwangyun Wohn ◽  
Nigel Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Interactive Installation

This article introduces a new concept, digital interactivity, through examining local digital culture; and video game culture is employed as a metaphor to interpret local digital culture. As a result, ‘control-’ and ‘communication’-based interaction are initiated, based on ‘user to media’ relationships. Based on the degree of physical interaction, ‘liminal’ and ‘transitive’ interactions are initiated. Less physical digital interaction is described as ‘liminal’ interaction and more physical digital interaction is described as ‘transitive’ interaction. These new classes of digital interaction can be applied to real-world examples, such as digital interactive installation artworks and video games.

scholarly journals Gamecloud - A Platform for Connecting Video Games

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Parkkila ◽  
Kati Järvi ◽  
Timo Hynninen ◽  
Jouni Ikonen ◽  
Jari Porras
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Platform Architecture ◽  
Mobile Market ◽  
Digital Nature ◽  
Interactive Medium

The growing video game markets, especially the mobile market, have caused problems in terms of new game products being found by players. Cross-promotion and in-game advertising have been used to promote video games inside each other. However, the digital nature of video games as an interactive medium enables deeper collaboration between video games, and could be used in a more profound manner. We interviewed Finnish video game companies to understand if they were interested in creating deeper collaboration between their game products, and how such collaboration could take place. Based on the results, we built a platform called Gamecloud for connecting games together. We present the platform architecture and demonstrate it in use, with examples of connecting games with other games and connecting games with the real world, alongside an example of physical exercising.

scholarly journals Volcanoes in video games: The portrayal of volcanoes in Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) video games and their learning potential

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward George McGowan ◽  
Jazmin Paris Scarlett
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
General Public ◽  
Active Volcano ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Ash Fall ◽  
Severe Burns ◽  
Commercial Off The Shelf ◽  
Negative Impacts

Abstract. Volcanoes are a very common staple in mainstream video games. Particularly within the action/adventure genres, entire missions (e.g. Monster Hunter: Generation Ultimate) or even full storylines (e.g. Spyro: The Reignited Trilogy) can require players to traverse an active volcano. With modern advancements in video game capabilities and graphics, many of these volcanic regions contain a lot of detail. Most video games nowadays have gameplay times in excess of 50 hours. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for example brags a minimum of 60 hours to complete. Therefore, players can spend a substantial amount of time immersed within the detailed graphics, and unknowingly learn about volcanic traits while playing. If these details are factually accurate to what is observed in real world volcanic systems, then video games can prove to be a powerful learning tool. However, inaccurate representations could instil a false understanding in thousands of players worldwide. Therefore, it is important to assess the accuracies of volcanology portrayed in mainstream video games and consider whether they can have an educational impact on the general public playing such games. Or, whether these volcanic details are overlooked by players as they focus solely on the entertainment factor provided. We have therefore reviewed several popular commercial video games that contain volcanic aspects and evaluated how realistic said aspects are when compared to real-world examples. It was found that all the games reviewed had a combination of accurate and inaccurate volcanic features and each would vary from game to game. The visual aesthetics of these features are usually very realistic, including lava, ash-fall and lahars. However, the inaccuracies or lack of representation of hazards that come with such features, such as ash-related breathing problems or severe burns from contact with molten lava, could have great negative impacts on a player's understanding of these deadly events. With further investigations assessing the direct impact on the general public, there is the opportunity to correctly assess how to incorporate the use of mainstream video games in educational systems and outreach.

scholarly journals Fictional Characters’ Heroism in Assassin’s Creed III Video Game in the Perception of Indonesian Video Gamers

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Rahmawan Jatmiko
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
Negative Impacts

Assassin’s Creed is a historical fiction video game developed and published by Ubisoft. This video game has been so far considered as one of the most violent video games. Assassin’s Creed III is the third sequel of which plot is set in a fictional history of real world events and follows the centuries-old conflict between the Assassins and the Templars. Based on this study, the plot, characters, characterization, and scenes in Assassin’s Creed III are deemed to be able to give positive teachings to the young generation, despite the fact that there are violent and sadistic scenes in the story. Haytham Kenway, who is “evil” protagonist in Assassin’s Creed Forsaken, is portrayed as an expert in using weapons, since he was kid. Separated from his family, Kenway was taken by mysterious mentor, who trained him to be the most deadly killer. Comparisons with classic characters such as Oedipus, Hamlet, or Indonesian legendary character Sangkuriang are intentionally made to sharpen the analysis. The finding of this study is that heroic value might be found in either protagonist or antagonistic characters, whose roles involved numerous violent actions. Comments from the official website and social media which claim that Assassin’s Creed has brought negative impacts on the consumers might not be totally true.

scholarly journals Discovering Social Desires and Conflicts from Subculture Narrative Multimedia

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10241
Author(s):  
O-Joun Lee ◽  
Heelim Hong ◽  
Eun-Soon You ◽  
Jin-Taek Kim
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Real World ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Imaginary World ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Social ◽  
Smart Governance ◽  
Diachronic Changes

This study aims at discovering social desires and conflicts from subculture narrative multimedia. Since one of the primary purposes in the subculture consumption is vicarious satisfaction, the subculture works straightforwardly describe what their readers want to achieve and break down. The latent desires and conflicts are useful for understanding our society and realizing smart governance. To discover the social issues, we concentrate on that each subculture genre has a unique imaginary world that consists of inventive subjects. We suppose that the subjects correspond to individual social issues. For example, game fiction, one of the popular genres, describes a world like video games. Under game systems, everyone gets the same results for the same efforts, and it can be interpreted as critics for the social inequality issue. Therefore, we first extract subjects of genres and measure the membership degrees of subculture works for each genre. Using the subjects and membership degrees, we build a genealogy tree of subculture genres by tracing their evolution and differentiation. Then, we extract social issues by searching for the subjects that come from the real world, not imaginary. If a subculture work criticizes authoritarianism, it might include subjects such as government officials and bureaucrats. A combination of the social issues and genre genealogy tree will show diachronic changes in our society. We have evaluated the proposed methods by extracting social issues reflected in Korean web novels.

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