I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he's wasting it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn't get the things he want, but that's a learning experience. It's worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, because in his eyes it makes it all worth it.

I see the money I give him as teaching opportunities. Kids will get in touch with these mechanics as they grow up, and now you have the chance to talk to him about it. Discuss it over and over, it's not a one-time thing, and you've made no permanent damage. Let him know you think it's not worth it, but I wouldn't put a permanent ban on it, as it may make it even more appealing. If he wants other (real-life) stuff later, remind him that he already spent his money on loot boxes and I think they will lose their appeal a bit.

Fully grown ADULTS fall prey to skinnerboxes (aka: Slot Machines) all the time. Its basic human psychology (heck: the skinnerbox is effective on virtually all Birds and Mammals). Its extremely fundamental to the function of the modern biological brain.

Its literally a "brain hack". This isn't some "willpower away" sort of training. This is literally how your brain, and your children's brain works. As well as how your dog's brain, and the bird's brains and the cats brains, and deer brains.

The only winning move is to not play. Its literally hopeless if you get sucked into a skinner box. You can't beat the biological functions of what your brain is designed to do.

--------

I don't think there's "long term damage" to be suffered here. Human brains, just like the brains of any mammal (or bird), are prone to operant conditioning. If you RANDOMLY give a reward when a subject (be it human, mammal, or bird) pushes a button, the subject will continue to push the button over and over again.

Its just biology.

EDIT: And random-rewards are far stronger than consistent rewards. If a reward is consistent, then when it "stops", the subject believes that the pattern is over. But if the reward was Random, then the subject will continue pushing the button even long after the pattern has stopped or been modified.

Studies have found propensities not absolutes across all subjects and species.

For example, river otters are notoriously difficult to train using operant conditioning because they are extremely curious, but also bore easily. Getting them to repeat a behavior indefinitely using a reward is extremely difficult if not impossible.

Likewise not all humans can be controlled as robot slaves incapable of escape as easily as the fatalistic determination description provided suggests.

People can learn to recognize scams and avoid them. Maybe there are some people who simply never learn. Maybe. Probably not though.

Addictions can be hard to overcome for many. But they are generally recoverable.

I don't think this is "addiction". Its clearly operant conditioning. You aren't going to suffer physical ailments like an Alcoholic or Heroin-abuser (or heck: even a coffee-drinker) would if you "stop pushing the button"

I'm pretty sure that our concepts of "addiction" (including "willpower") are mostly pseudo-science. While psychologists are carefully studying the issues, the mass media needs to keep making movies and stories, and those stories do NOT reflect upon reality very well. Even well-researched stories, like Inside Out, or Finding Nemo (Dory's character is a very well researched example of memory loss) may end up obsolete as research moves forward. (IIRC: Inside Out was initially based on some psychology research. But the research already dramatically changed by the time Inside Out was out of production, and it was too late to change the story at that point).

The sad truth is: most of the psychology the layman knows is wrong. Its "story" psychology, created for drama and storytelling. Not "real" psychology, which actually predicts human behavior.

-----------

In any case, I believe that lootboxes are a clear, and simple, example of operant conditioning. We know how to "deprogram" operant conditioning. You either:

1. Remove the reward entirely -- Without a reward, and people will stop. It may take 10,000 cycles, but eventually all subjects stop when the reward is fully taken out of the picture. Its surprising how long subjects will continue their behavior in the absence of a reward, but it will eventually stop.

2. Introduce punishments -- Shock the user, or cause other forms of pain. If the punishment is greater than the reward, the subject will eventually stop.

As far as I know, those are the two ways to stop a conditioned behavior. Social pressure may probably serve as #2, but in my experience, it puts a lot of strain on the social relationships (ex: subject may just start lying instead of telling the truth about their behavior). In effect, using social pressure to stop #2 may only cause the subject to become more trained in the act of lying.

While there are many healthy kids and highly functioning adults who grew up with electronics and playing games (myself included), the fact is that these last 10 years have been a landmine for kids and adults alike in terms of dark patterns and psychological manipulation at scale.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Glow-Kids-Screen-Addiction-Hijacking/...

I would love if we as a society would use the word "compulsion" for things that are not physical addictions, but I feel like that battle was lost some time ago, so I gave up.

I think a core tenant of his work was that there is no mental state at all and that everything is just conditioning.

[144] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Dice_by_number_of_sides#D...

At least, that's what the various casino engineers tell me.

EDIT: In particular: it costs money to pull the lever in a Slot Machine. So you have a penalty every time you pull the lever. Even with this penalty, many people pull that level compulsively, hoping for the slight chance to win.

I understand from a Louis Theroux documentary on gambling addicts that it is the feeling of the near miss that is actually addictive and not the feeling of the win. Gambling addicts are used to winning and so they don't get a buzz from that.

I don't have a perfect solution, just pointing out the bind we're in.

I'm actually not terribly prone to the "youth are just all messed up today compared to my generation" idea scheme, but while homo sapiens hasn't changed, the environment has changed radically and the amount of cognitive firepower being brought to bear on us to get our money and manipulate us has skyrocketed in the past decade or two. I've got a 11 and 8 year old and am still struggling through how to deal with it.

I think ultimately, this is the same thing - just digitized. I don't really have an opinion whether that's good or bad, just that it's clearly aimed at kids to buy this stuff, just like the stickers were.

Imagine a fairly boring interface that has Pokemon cards or football stickers in. Like your hands holding them and trading them and sticking them on things.

Now contrast that to the loot box stuff that has exciting music, flashing lights, A-B tested into oblivion, the money comes from some ethereal 'account' rather than involving an actual exchange, etc.

I think the analogy is more with the flashing exciting slot machines at the pub (which seem to have evolved a ton since I were a small as well...)

One team member had previous experience from working on casino games and he said that at least there they had clear rules for how they were allowed to handle it and who they were allowed to target.

Companies that sold trading cards, stickers, whatever did the same marketing and testing as video game companies.

Anecdata, I had one in the shape of a dinosaur, must have ben 5 or 6 and I still remember (some 50 years later) the day I decided that I needed a new toy the doubts about actually breaking it (with the assistance of my dad) and perfectly remmber the dinosaur, whilst I cannot remember at all which toy I was willing to get, probably a toy gun, but I am not sure.

Loot boxes strip all of that away and introduce FOMO, so the only option you have is to keep pumping money into the machine, and then to up the ante if everyone else starts getting skins or emotes or dance moves that you don't have, so you don't get left behind.

What's more is that they're linked to micro transactions, so there's nothing stopping you throwing away as much money as you have in your bank account, or having your kid do it without any awareness of where the money is actually coming from. Spending £1.50 of your pocket money on a pack of stickers is a totally different situation to blowing £10-£20 a pop on in-game currencies to buy loot boxes.

There are few things that I'd call evil but this stuff is beyond malevolent. At best it's a shameless scam and they go to an incredibly effort to make the vanilla game boring without buying into the gamble.

For example in Dota 2 people can trade skins for heroes they don't play. Isn't that the same thing as trading a pokemon you don't want?

The majority of free-to-play games from Asia don't provide a mechanism for that.

“New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia was responsible for the ban, believing that it robbed school children of their hard earned nickels and dimes.[41][42] La Guardia spearheaded major raids throughout the city, collecting thousands of machines. The mayor participated with police in destroying machines with sledgehammers before dumping the remnants into the city's rivers.[42]”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball#Pinball_and_gambling

Then, sounds like the hubbub at the time was both mostly reasonable and effective.

0: citation: myself and gambiting and barneygale at a minimum

Video games have managed to make the items significantly more valuable. And it increasingly feels as though _most_ games are built around these gambling mechanics, as opposed to just the occasional game like Magic The Gathering which worked that way.

There's a lot of games that try to nudge closer to this with card "crafting" where you destroy card A to create in game currency that you can then use to purchase card B. This is ALMOST to the point where I find it acceptable, but until I can trade card A to another player for card B, it's still complicated gambling.

Real world collectable card games sit in the grayest area imo. You're buying a tangible object that represents some degree of gambling (if you buy packs) but there exists a secondary market that allows for you to bypass that and still enjoy the activity. It's mostly good, but then again my Magic collection sits somewhere around 15,000 total cards, so maybe I'm not the best person to talk about this...

And you can sell CS:Go and TF2 items for Steam credit. I'm not convinced this makes anything better. A slot machine isn't the only way to get money, but I still don't think we should market slot machines to children.

I think a lot of the people who dislike "lootboxes", but grew up with collectible card games like Magic, try to rationalize why one is okay and the other is not. And the hard truth is that it was never okay when Magic did it either, but the problem wasn't pervasive to the point where we had to address it. This isn't to say that Magic is evil or that everyone who bought random card packs as a child is now scarred for life, but it's not a great practice.

Collectible card games should not be a reason to allow loot boxes, and any laws we make ought to apply to both, instead of attempting to create strange carve outs.

---

Disclaimer: I've never played Magic, and I avoid any video game that contains micro-transactions.

Edit: And just to be absolutely clear, this isn't to say that Magic should be banned any more than all video games should be banned, just that consumers should know what they're paying for, unless they're explicitly in a casino.

My understanding is that the vast majority of loot boxes are the sole way of acquiring the in game objects they posses. If there's a CS gun/skin/whatever in a loot box, you can't just go out and buy that thing for money. Transaction behavior is fine to me. That's one problem. Another is that you don't "own" that thing, you just have permission to use it. That's slightly different from owning a physical object.

It's an aggregate, and there are degrees of bad design patterns.

Whole game for single transaction > game with DLC > game with loot box for aesthetic features> game with loot box for core features.

I see your point that CCGs are basically the analogue version of loot boxes, and I can't entirely disagree. It's been called "cardboard crack" before, with good reason. As someone working for a tabletop gaming company who's primary product is randomized miniature figures used to play games, I also am WAY to close to this one to think objectively.

So, in Valve's games, this isn't true. Lootboxes are the only "first party" way to buy skins in CS: Go, but you can use the Steam marketplace to trade with other players.

I think the best example of a way to deal with acquired in game intems I can think of personally for something that didn't suck, was Diablo 3 when it first hit. If the game randomly dropped a high tier weapon, you could use it, trade it, or sell it for real money. The real money auction house was a great addition imo.

With lootboxes, the payoff is immediate. The barrier between the impulse of someone with an addiction and the payoff is virtually non-existent. I think that makes a difference in the potential for addictive behavior that shouldn't be overlooked.

The problem exists in all of them, we're just talking about the speed of delivery and how it makes somethings worse-bad instead of just bad.

In fact, conventional wisdom in MTGO is to never open packs and always draft them.

There's one big difference. Those stickers were immediately tradeable. Actually exchanging the missing pieces with others was most of the fun. If you can only rely on the packs, that's all social fun cut out.

A sticker pack whale will spend hundreds of Euros. If you only wanna spend 50 bucks better get another hobby tbh.

Just to be clear, sticker collection economy is also shady, it just doesn't have a societal impact remotely like that of loot boxes.

This is a good price. I've been paying CHF 1.20 for 5 stickers at the local corner store.

My perspective is that there are two kinds of people. Those who understand that slot machines are dangerous and a bad long term investment, and those who do not and gradually become more and more addicted to them.

I've never seen a casino customer who was initially attracted to slot machine mechanics, gradually learn that they a poor exchange of value, overcome their addictive nature and stop playing them.

They may stop playing because they are broke. They may learn to manage the addiction at a level they enjoy and can sustain. But they don't just suddenly understand that it's a bad deal and stop wanting to play.

In the end he did learn his lesson, sort of. He realised he had squandered his cash but in learning the game mechanics also found out some skins could be unlocked by earning points through playing. As he doesnt like shooting anyone its up to me to grind for points. I agreed for the extra turns of course. Perhaps a lesson in effective delegation to boot :)

What's your model for what this is though?

The GP mentions a pub fruit machine. I suppose you could make the case for it being like football stickers.

As I'm writing this though, I'm not entirely sure what makes fruit machine bad, football stickers good. I would guess trading stickers is a social activity, and theres an in build limit to how many stickers you need? Where do loot boxes come out on these measures?

But whichever thing it is, parental guidance is always a good idea. As a parent, you get a better idea of what's going on, and you can provide context for your kid and learn the lessons together. Maybe it was a scam after all, maybe it is addictive, maybe it's okay. But figure it out together.

Another thing to keep in mind: kids in France start drinking at a much younger age than elsewhere, but they do it at home, with half a glass of wine at dinner. The alcohol might still be harmful, but France certainly doesn't have the binge drinking problem that the UK has.

The modern ones with carefully created low drop rate "rare" cards are lottery scratch card gambling. No better than a fruit machine, or fixed odds thing in the bookies, and in need of regulation.

Same impulses that have led to addictive purchasing until you get the winner. Same cynical house always wins. Personally I put them in the same "clearly gambling" bucket as game loot boxes.

I was going to disagree with you because the odds are printed on packs but now that I've thought about it you're absolutely correct. I used to buy basketball card packs and the recent Beckett magazine and see how much each pack was worth, and only now am I seeing the tendencies that caused in me later in life.

Somewhere that morphed into artificial scarcity, and kids everywhere being set up to buy five sets worth of cards, to maybe get a full set.

Is it not simply that the fruit machines are more addictive than the sticker packs?

The reason for this I think is probably the blinking lights and sounds, live control of the interaction (transaction) and environment, versus an inert packet of cards / stickers, that can at best be extremely shiny.

Of course, games are in a position to completely control the transaction and environment for maximum addictiveness, and given the lack of regulation (vs regular gambling) and technology, they can actually go beyond what fruit machines can do (or are allowed to do) to people.

They could, in theory, also make a more "boring" loot box that doesn't quite exploit our psychology as mercilessly, just a transaction. And then it would be more like sticker albums. Provided that the game allows free trading of any items in the loot box. Because that means you actually get something in return that isn't just a consumable.

But games will inevitably choose for the exploitative option, therefore yeah, regulate the hell out of it. It's not really a huge loss to culture or anything, nor is there IMO any fundamental reason why it is okay for people to make money that way.

Slot machines pay out real money. It helps contributing to the illusion that you can recover from your losses by playing more. Football stickers, loot boxes, etc... make it clear that the money is spent.

I think this thread is missing the main reason why gambling dangerous: it can turn money into more money. The blinking lights and the Skinner box pyschology only play a supporting role to the main attraction: which is the belief that you can walk out richer than you walked in. This particularly plagues the poor, either because they are desperate or lack the financial accumen, and is the main reason why it is regulated. In the UK where sports gambling is legal, it is widely considered a blight on the lower class.

The fact the next roll could win back everything I've lost tonight AND make a profit on top, is far more dangerous than the next pull being merely able to finally get me that coveted Overwatch skin.

Hence why colloquially everyone calls loot boxes gambling, but no one has been able to make a strong legal case for why Overwatch loot boxes constitute gambling. If anything, Counterstrike is in the worse legal position and has had ACTUAL gambling scandals due to the high resale value of certain weapon skins.

And where would 2p machines [1] fit into this? It's acceptable to let your kids go on those and they have real money prizes.

That's not to say you're wrong though, because as I said I'm not really sure.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=su5xcK9FhRw

Those aren't going to break the bank though, or start a habit, so a harmless way to let the kids get rid of parent's pocket of excess coppers.

"It's worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, because in his eyes it makes it all worth it."

THAT is the whole problem. Those rewards. Kids absolutely cannot understand how to cope with that feeling. Getting lucky and opening the thing they want becomes an expectation. They EXPECT to get lucky now.

You can talk to your kid without spending a dime, without letting them engage in the activity. What else are you just going to "try" and then talk about? Let him smoke some cigarettes, get cancer, and then say, see son, there's a lesson to be learned here...... no.

You don't learn that gambling is bad by gambling a little bit and losing a bit of money.

If people were rational enough for that, people wouldn't suffer from gambling addiction.

There's only one way to protect kids from gambling: don't let them get near it.

This is not always the case on apex legends, where some limited offer items are only obtainable from loot boxes.

My favorite place to view this is Path of Exile in game economy. They do have random loot boxes for cosmetics, but I'm talking about the actual in game economy around items that power up your character. None of which can be bought for real money and instead require time to farm them (RMT does exist but is against ToS and can get you banned).

There are extremely rare items that cost nothing because they aren't used. There are quite common items that have decent value because of how high the demand it. Technically the game doesn't even have a currency, but players found a small set of common but also highly useful items that have become the defacto currency so much so the developers even admit they now count as currency.

In apex there have been posts from people who have spent thousands to try to unlock a particular item. Literally opening the same random box 400 times and failing to get the item.

Edit: to elaborate, I think it depends on many things. One that comes to mind is, how strong is the "dopamine" effect vs vs the "oh, sudden insight into how market economies work" in the child. (And parent, as a mirror and role model.)

If the reward response is very strong, I can't help but thinking about the knowledge we have about alcohol and children: we know it's harmful when parents try to teach children to drink responsibly and "let them try in controlled conditions". It works much better to not let children drink at all.

Do we? In French culture it’s not uncommon to let kids as young as 12-13 take a few sips of wine at weddings, family meals, etc; and having attended university in France, the UK, and the US, my experience is that French students are by far the most reasonable in their consumption. Some might get hammered once or twice a week during their first years of university, but there’s not much that approaches the frat party levels of debauchery one witnesses in the US.

Drinking 4+ glasses of wine all at once is quite different from drinking one glass at each meal and one before bed. Extrapolate that to weekly statistics and someone who drinks a lot of wine culturally can look worse than someone who only drinks at parties, and they could even look like an alcoholic.

Both the things you describe - one person have 4+ glasses of wine on a night out, and another person have one glass of wine at each meal and another before bed - are worrying.

Binge drinking (and 4+ glasses of wine is definitely a binge) significantly increases risks of a number of harms from things like accidents, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, etc. The advice strongly recommends against binging, but if it's only occasionally it's probably not that harmful.

The other situation is a bit more complicated depending on serving size and wine strength.

A small glass of wine is about 150ml. If the wine is 9% ABV that would give us 1.5 UK units per glass. Two of those a day, 6 days a week, is about 19 units. That's more than the recommended limit which is 14 units per week, and it doesn't have more than one drink free day.

A larger glass of wine is about 200 ml. The wine might be stronger at 12.5% ABV. That gives us 2.5 units per glass, and 30 units per week. This is probably problem and harmful drinking.

For alcoholism we're probably talking about people who need a medically assisted withdrawal from alcohol.

https://pathways.nice.org.uk/pathways/alcohol-use-disorders/...

A medically assisted withdrawal from alcohol would be considered if the person is drinking 15 units per day. That's two 750ml bottles of 10% ABV wine every day. This would be an outpatient programme.

An inpatient medically assisted withdrawal would be considered if the person drinks over 30 units per day. This is 750ml of 40% ABV spirits, or 4 bottles of that 10% ABV wine.

It may be functional alcoholism, if it doesn't affect your finances/job/relationships, but it's still alcoholism.

Yes, and so is the number of glass bottles they recycle. But it's the alcoholism that is a health problem to address.

Uhhh no we don't know that. Because it's not true at all.

When I was 16, this was the legal age to drink beer. I always thought it was a good idea to first learn what alcohol does, before you learn to drive (which is 18, where I live).

Aaanyway, at some point we did raise the legal drinking age to 18 (afaik, this was for no other particular reason than the Christian Democrats being in power).

I'm still awaiting the reports that binge drinking among kids and young adults has decreased. Because it hasn't.

Except now some kids will wait 2 years before they learn to not abuse alcohol the hard way. But they would anyway (by which I mean, some of them. I know enough people who are perfectly responsible or not drinking at all). Maybe it's a slightly tougher lesson because you're not 17 any more.

But all in all, if parents raise their kids, guide them, and can make sure their first experiences with alcohol are in fact responsible, this teaches the kid valuable lessons and it's good for them in the way they learn about alcohol and its dangers and how to deal with it, instead of having to figure it out alone, when adult. Parenting can be an extremely powerful positive force in the upbringing of a child and really I would need to see some strong evidence to the contrary.

You are talking about actual controlled conditions with the parents playing an active role. I really need to see evidence that that could possibly have any negative effect what-so-ever.

I got "stung" enough by a trader in London who demonstrated that you shouldn't buy a pig in a poke. I still keep the cheap trinket I got instead as a reminder to always find out what I'm paying for.

A quote from the report[0]:

> At present, the Gambling Commission states that purchasing loot boxes does not meet the regulatory definition of licensable gambling under the Gambling Act 2005 because the in-game items have no real-world monetary value outside the games.

They later reference this written evidence[1] that suggest that such legal framework is too tight and needs to be broadened.

[0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcu...

[1] http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence....

I think the gaming community would want loot-boxes completely banned under the guise of "gambling".

The individuals that would spend an unhealthy amount on these loot-boxes are not individuals that will stop their behavior if lootboxes are banned or even regulated.

These individuals have know that you can't get your money back, you can't earn more money and you can blow your life savings on it. With no return promised, monetarily, these individuals know the money they spend can't be gambled back. Thats the crux of gambling and their laws. People truly believes one more bet and they can get it all back.

It's insane if a person on Overwatch or Fortnite truly believes the money they waste if beyond their budget is a good investment at all. That problem lies with the individual not EA and loot boxes.

Those people will have constant issues with their finance until they seek the help they need to stop. That could be learning better budgeting behavior to identifying they have a gambling problem.

That could be a gambling impulse but really we know people that constantly spend their money carelessly regardless of some mental addiction. A lot of people lack of financial control shouldn't create laws to dictate to companies what they should do, especially in a market saturated with competition that don't deploy any of these practices simply because these people refuse to follow a monthly budget thats within their means.

We don't remove things from society just cause others have difficulty with it. Now I have no issue with more regulations especially targeted at kids, but let's be honest here. Most of this should still fall on parents and education. Companies caught pushing to sell these random loot-boxes to kids should be addressed and fined. Especially the ones that use streams that buy these boxes and open them with kids audiences. These companies that sponsored these streamers should receives fines for targeting kids. Also like to see some form of guarantee or odds exposure.

Long rant, but I find the fact you can't get monetary value back makes it extremely different than the current types of gambling and should effect the way we regulate it. End of the day, when no monetary value can be extracted we are regulating random chance and rewards...silly path to go down to call anything random and rewarding essentially gambling.

I'm afraid you are going through what Chinese and to some extend Russian parents went through 1 and 2 decades ago. Chinese parents understood long ago what businesses like Google and Tencent were are all about. In China, they call them "pocket slot machines" The very reason they link the game to your bank account is to milk money from you, or god forbid, your children.

My former high school classmate who did not manage to leave Russia is running a typical "smartphone fixer" kiosk. He said few years ago that the most common request he gets from people is to "remove Google nagware and lock, block or delete Google Pay" so their child will never ever buy anything "in that Internet thing," and do the same for clickfarming "social" apps.

Facebook maliciously obfuscated virtual currency abstractions once they realized kids disassociating the cash transaction was a great way to bump their numbers - https://www.revealnews.org/article/facebook-knowingly-duped-...

It's not okay to say "something has been done before" or "this is like that".

As human beings, we are learning what types of things are destructive. When we learn about these problems, it's not healthy to justify doing another thing wrong because we happened to live through doing it wrong before.

For example, people who say "I didn't wear a helmet when I was a kid" are being irresponsible. No, you didn't. But thankfully, science, data, and time have shown us that wearing a helmet makes far more sense for our health and safety, so that's what we do now. We learn, we change, we adapt. It's part of the process.

So, Pokemon, and Baseball cards, etc, were all gambling. The whole ordeal of spending money in hopes of getting what you want, then every once in a while getting a jackpot is very unhealthy and can be destructive in our development.

Are we okay after going through all that? Pretty much. But would we not be far better without having had that in our lives? Maybe. So now we know. And now we must stop these destructive business practices.

I agree. But if you look at one of those wrongs and don't actually think it is wrong, then it may mean the other wrong isn't wrong as well.

My point is NOT: 1: TCG booster packs are like loot boxes. C: Therefore people should have a problem with loot boxes.

My point is: 1: TCG booster packs are like loot boxes. 2: People don't have a problem with TCG booster packs. C: Therefore people should have a problem with loot boxes.

The inclusion of the second idea is very important.

Also, as someone else pointed out in a different comment threat, the problem seems to be with the way virtual currency is used. In this case, that is a chance that has no analogy with TCG booster packs, and as such my argument doesn't apply.

>For example, people who say "I didn't wear a helmet when I was a kid" are being irresponsible. No, you didn't. But thankfully, science, data, and time have shown us that wearing a helmet makes far more sense for our health and safety, so that's what we do now. We learn, we change, we adapt. It's part of the process.

In this case, what is being said is that you should've wore an helmet when you were a kid, but we can't go back and change the past. Imagine if science instead said that in the past people shouldn't have worn helmets but kids these days should. I would definitely want more information. But in this case, both past and present are being condemned so there is consistency.

>So, Pokemon, and Baseball cards, etc, were all gambling.

They are still a think, but I don't see people calling them gambling even today. Thus my question about a potential lack of consistency.

Thankfully due to science and data, we now know that providing infrastructure, bike lanes, good traffic rules for bikes, lessons in school for biking, car driving lessons including bike safety and just being the nr.1 method of transportation besides legs, increases safety AND public health AND bike usage AND decreases car usage with all its negative externalities.

There is no brain damage epidemic here. But maybe we don't wear helmets, but we DO regulate the ever loving shit out of what we can advertise and sell to children.

Absolutely. Including hiring former casino personnel. Cards don't have flashy lights, music, nor the concept of a near miss.

You could call them the same only if you ignore all the context around it. For example, I know of no cards where you can purchase a more expensive card pack that has slightly higher odds of getting something good. Different loot boxes costing different amounts of money with the only difference being a slight increase in percentages are a completely common occurence.

But I agree with your overall point that the games are more flashy and do exploit more than cards ever could.

I definitely blew my fair share on video games, but I also believe this is a generational shift. I do not believe charging $$ for "cosmetics" would have been as successful in "my day". But what does it mean?

I keep hearing about the social aspects behind these games (kids who don’t have skins in fortnite are bullied at school, etc.) It sounds like goods that make a child popular are just digital these days as opposed to physical items like Pokémon cards.

Air Jordans, Pokémon cards, brand name clothes like hollister and AE, and then popular phones like the razer were ubiquitous among those that were popular. Kids who didn’t have those things were bullied relentlessly.

I was in high school then. The people who didn't care about aesthetics were always the ones bullied.

However, he wasn't interested in new games at all - instead he spend that money, all of it, on Fortnite cosmetics, which seems absolutely bizarre and alien to me. Growing up with Quake, Half-Life, Deus Ex and other classics we also loved games and didn't think twice about spending money on it, but I'm sure we would have laughed away any attempt to charge for skins and random items. Of course strong modding communities helped as well.

Anyway, this insight really surprised me - I always thought it's a few whales that participate in this nonsense, but apparently it's everyone, including the otherwise sane and reasonable kid from next-door.

The confusion with Apex is that there are 3 types of currency. One is the in game free currency. That's typically used to unlock characters who cost 12,000 units. The second currency are the gold coins, which are used as premium purchasing power from the devs for things like the battlepass and specific items in the rotating store. The third currency refers to materials. Materials can be used to purchase any skin/celebration/quip etc. Materials can be bought with gold. I believe that you purchased the wrong thing.

If you really want a particular skin it's not that hard to get!

This is what we thought too but theres no way to buy materials with gold. Only through Apex packs. Eg [0], [1].

[0] https://www.shacknews.com/article/109806/how-to-get-crafting...

[1] https://www.techjunkie.com/get-crafting-metals-apex-legends/

but i also think there's a generational divide: while i would gladly pay games for a leg up (better weapons, higher jumps, that sort of thing), i would never ever buy a "skin" for my character, or anything superficial for that matter. but I see kids getting completely hooked on this. and i don't really get it. i mean, from a young age i would hack the game and add whatever i wanted (including skins), so maybe that's why asking me to pay for something as useless as a "skin" will never fly with me.

I've known teachers who specifically have had to have words with kids who are bullying their classmate for not having a skin in fortnite. I'm sure that's rare but the point is that these kids are not yet equipped to deal with the kind of manipulation companies throw at you to try to get you to buy into this economy. "Hacking" skins into the game is pointless, because it's not about looking good to yourself, it's about showing off your shiny trinket to your peers.

In Australia they had these stupid figurines they were giving to parents that were inside packets, with varying rarity. Kids were going mental for them, and were begging parents to buy more groceries to get more packs.

It's definitely gambling by another name, and kids are susceptible to it massively.

https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4

Historically, there was a way for people to make successful, interesting, exciting and fun games that didn't require horrific financial exploitation of vulnerable players.

To quote the Dude: "You're not wrong, Walter, you're just an asshole."

Why?? What is the point of a game, if you can buy advantages? It reduces the competitive aspect to who can spend more money.

I wonder if there's mileage in a multiplayer version of the "I'm rich" app.

There is a dual aspect to that psychology: e.g. the person who succeeds despite having less expensive equipment. I remember reading a fishing forum where a guy was bragging about all the fish he caught with budget gear and how all the guys with premium setups were jealous of him. And sport fishing is really just a type of game (as is hunting).

Another point to consider is people who pay money for hacks. e.g. see through walls, highlight opposing team characters, or auto-follow (like a when your sights stay sticky on a player). I've seen high-level competitors get banned from Twitch for using these exploits. Yet I have no trouble understanding why they would do so any more than I have trouble understanding why a lot of athletes use doping.

I can kind of identify with it though. I remember going to a lot of bother to update the player DB in Sensible World of Soccer to reflect the most recent season. I also patched it and didn't pay (not even sure if there was a paid update). But it's not a stretch to imagine that if I didn't understand how to do it myself and someone offered me a pound for the floppy disk I may have bought it!

And you can’t hack this because these are multiplayer games.

I grew up in lower middle class area and i saw it A LOT. To me it seems less like classism and more tribal or human nature.

Unless by certain tax bracket you mean poverty in which case yeah _maybe_ fashion stops mattering then, but I don't have any experience with that.

How do you know they are in certain tax bracket though? Do you ask everyone on the street about their taxes? Or maybe you're assuming their tax bracket on how they dress? :)

That's because that's pretty much exactly what it is. It's a signaling mechanism.

Except when I buy a shirt or jacket or shoes, I don't buy a ticket and get something random with a minor chance to get what I actually want.

Then immediately I can sell it back (WOW!) for less than I have bought it and try again and again, yeah.

Your analogy is totally off.

i do get what you're saying thou...

I mean I play FFXIV casually, but there's a huge subculture in that game for making looks, combinations and colorings of its huge library of clothing items.

All I'm saying is, withhold your judgment a bit on things you're not into yourself.

Their online persona is part of their identity. For some people, buying an expensive in game item makes them feel rich/successful/whatever, and some people will complement/judge them on their taste/expenditure etc.

It’s no different to buying a Rolex, a fast car or Louis vuitton hand bag. All of them are functionally the same but convey something about the owner

Skins, on the other hand... so, to start with, I play FF14, which has a cash shop for things like special outfits and emotes. While I wouldn't dump all my disposable income into cosmetic stuff, and I sure as hell don't trawl the cash shop looking for stuff to buy, I'll buy stuff here and there if it really catches my eye or if it could be useful. For example, I went to an in-game wedding over the weekend, and I didn't have anything to wear that was really appropriate, so I hopped on the cash shop, looked at a couple of dresses, asked my friends for advice on which one looks better, and bought exactly one outfit. And then there was when I was first setting up by subscription after my free month ran out, and I stumbled on a set of emotes inspired by one of my favorite television franchises of all time. Those were the only things I bought from the cash shop... though I have to admit I'm tempted to buy the new cat ear hood (which was heavily advertised when it came out) just because cat ears are kind of my thing.

So I'm definitely not in the "buy all the skins" camp, but I'm fine with buying a couple of items here and there that enhance my enjoyment of the game. And, of course, this leads into why lootboxes are evil. In a game that uses lootboxes, you can't just buy one or two cool things. You have to keep buying lootboxes and opening them again and again and again and again until you get the thing you're looking for. It's exploitative, and it trains the mind to derive enjoyment from addictive behaviors.

for the generation that admits to buying these things without qualm, think about the social benefits as much as having the right console/toy/action figure had

Much transactions in the world are scams run by con men. Wise parents teach their kids. No better way to learn than from losing some real money in a scam, as long as you recognize the principles involved and it helps increase your distrust and skepticism of others in the future.

In the end, only the paranoid survive. Only con artists and rubes claim otherwise. Street skills are paramount, something few schools teach, by design.

Should we ban kids from these games? Maybe not. This is a good way to learn about scams as long as you learn. Games should instead be required to disclose the scam after fooling the prey, and thus become educational. Where people get into trouble is when they've been so sheltered and protected that they hit the legal contract age of 18 and believe fairy tales that the world is good and people can be trusted. Those poor kids are ripe for the plucking by the predators and get into a lot of trouble. Many lives are ruined at that point. Better to let them get ripped off a few times when younger for small amounts with these games. Regulation should focus an making rip offs of minors be fully refundable upon request, and to require scam disclosure. Scamming kids without disclosing how the scam works should be punishable with long prison sentences for everyone involved in the scam, executives, programmers, accountants, graphic artists. Games can be educational and there's no better lesson than how the adult world is actually going to work.

this just means every company can try to scam children as many times as they want. Either they keep making up new ways to trick children, or they word their disclosure of the scams in a way children can't understand so they keep falling for it. Either way allowing companies to prey on children so that they learn better is like letting people lure children into the back of vans so they "learn their lesson" after they get raped.

It'd be far better to forbid companies from predatory practices when we identify them and also try to educate kids on the tactics used against them and how to identify them, but that kind of education has to happen throughout their development. The companies who make these games hire people with advanced degrees to research, design and and implement the most additive systems possible. The reality is that children don't have the mental capacity to fully understand everything involved.

I agree that we should instill a distrust of corporations in our children and that we should try to build their defenses against manipulation, but learning by letting them be repeatedly exploited is some very backwards thinking.

I think you could probably get the same results by creating games specifically designed to demonstrate ways companies try to take advantage of us and you could do it without giving companies a chance to profit off your "teaching" method.

They should pay for license, they should have proper responsible gaming policy, ability to self-exclude, in case of products for kids, their parents should be informed that given product is a gambling product (older parents might not be aware of this), etc.

There is also a store where you can buy certain skins/items directly with money, but these items rotate (I think weekly?). Finally, there is a "battle pass" that lets you earn rewards by doing in game challenges (get so many skills in a certain part of the map, play as a certain character so many times, etc). The battle pass costs $10 US dollars. You can also spend real money to buy levels for your battle pass - so basically, dump money to earn everything, and avoid doing the challenges.

Believe it or not, Apex is one of the better F2P games when it comes to ease of getting items without paying much money. With that said, I think my complicated description above serves as a good example of how filthy these games can get. If Apex is what is considered a "good" model, just imagine the bad ones.

1. Apex plays a real dirty game of hooking you on boxes then slowly phasing them out.

You start by getting a box every level. Then every second level. Then every 5th level, then, no more boxes at all. Sure, once every few months a battlepass will be introduced that gives you another crack at free boxes (as of Season 2, Season 1 had no free boxes I believe). But they tease you all through the game: "If you buy our Season pass you'd have gotten a box at this level".

2. Limited availability

You can never just go buy a skin unless its on the timed rotation. You miss that rotation? You're S.O.L.. Maybe it'll rotate in again? Maybe you need to gamble it to get it before the entire opportunity is gone (Limited events)

3. Hidden costs

You can't exchange cash for skins. First you buy a "currency" and then you exchange that currency for the cosmetic. This again, is done with seedy practices like encouraging you to buy more currency than you need (you can only buy intervals of the currency, never just an exact amount to afford the skin). Then they go around and do shitty things like "discounting" a skin from 1,800 coins to 1,200 coins... but you can only buy coins in 1,000 or 2,000 intervals?

4. They bait people with promises

You are guaranteed an heirloom item every 500 boxes. I'm pretty sure there's a 15 or 25 box limit on Legendaries too. So you get all your free boxes and didn't get a Legendary? Well just pay us for 10 more and you'll get it!

5. (Opinionated) The bang for your buck is low

Most games I have experience with tie in special bonuses for the highest rarity items. Either they're changing the graphics of more than just your model (such as affecting particle effects of abilities) or they change voice lines and other unique features. Apex does none of that and a "Legendary" item is essentially just a higher effort skin. I argue the value of an "$18" skin is not worth that cost.

Ranting further, "Legendary" is a loosely termed tier of cosmetic loot. A Legendary banner is far less valuable to people than a Legendary skin for their character or weapon. There's numerous guns that the developers have outright said are not meant to be late game viable so getting a Legendary skin for a gun you're suppose to discard eventually feels greedy. The boxes come with filler junk like "crafting material" that doesn't even afford you to buy a cosmetic item of the tier (Legendary skins are 1,200 materials, but a Legendary Crafting Material drop is only worth 600)

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With all that ranting done, I will say that I have like... 120 hours in Apex? I love the game, I do support the developers via Battle Pass but have no fantasy that their business model is "Good" and see many seedy practices occurring meant to hook people.

The game is an absolute blast, but don't encourage the Loot Box bullshit, you can play the game, enjoy it and get everything it has to offer without paying them a dime.

Also perhaps better than spending the money on sweets.

Teaching kids to gamble is a horrid idea.

>Also perhaps better than spending the money on sweets.

Yeah, the kid must be overweight as well. What about books, toys or cinema? And for instance I don't mind my kid having an ice cream with 6 (outside school) trainings a week

Teaching kids to gamble - I would see it as the opposite, teaching them not to gamble. They will be confronted with gambling opportunities all through their lives, with higher stakes. Better to learn with pocket money.

Here in Germany afaik there is also a law that children are not able to do business transactions. That means if you sell something to a kid, the parents can come back to you and say the transaction is invalid. I wonder how that works out with virtual goods and games?

Teaching your kid it is a waste of money and not to endorse that practice might be a better choice.

I don't think shielding kids from everything bad in the world usually results in them being able to deal well with bad things in the world as adults.

Not saying they should play those games that have gambling elements. But I also don't find it straightforward to say it is unequivocally bad.

With sweets I know stories of kids who weren't allowed any sweets who developed an excessive sweet tooth later on.

how do you teach them? this sort of abstract conversation would have gone in one ear and out the other when I was a kid. I only ever learned stuff was bad if I actually experienced consequences from it.