Ban kids from loot box gambling in games • Hacker News Board

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#221

Post by Slippery_John » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #114

The actual report is here: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z... I found this remarkable: "‘Lack of honesty and transparency’ reported among representatives of some games and social media companies in giving evidence." Some quotes from the report: > 62.We were contacted by a member of the public whose adult son built up considerable debts, reported to be in excess of £50,000, through spendin…

> Apple, Google, and game makers need to understand what's happening here.

I'm pretty sure Apple understands. That seems like the whole point behind their new game subscription deal - the games included aren't allowed to have microtransactions. On the other end of things their screen time and ask to buy features are global, powerful, and not super hard to discover.

Google has similar parental control tools, though that's tempered by the fact that they can't be made global. The Fortnite port on Android, for instance, completely side steps it.

That said, I'm pretty sure neither stores make distinction between gambling and other forms of in app purchases.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#222

Post by seventhtiger » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #78

seventhtiger wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the reason Magic is different is because you are actually gambling for things with monetary value? That doesn't sound right. I'd think it'd be less like gambling if the rewards had no monetary value, like random candies or skins in a video game. Then even the hope of getting your money back isn't there. You know all you're getting is just candy or toys.

No, it has a monetary value, But you can't resell it. People spend thousands on skins, with some of the items only accessible by repeatedly rolling the dice on a loot box. (Others have price ceilings for direct purchases). The closed nature of the economy just means you can only purchase from the one person who is setting the price and you have no ability to trade it back in for cash. Magic cards you can resell your…

It has value sure but it's not monetary if you can't convert it to money. These things have no monetary value. So you should know going in you will never make your money back. You will only get better or worse game items.

That's farther than gambling than the trading card model.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#223

Post by jaclaz » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #175

weaksauce wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe just a little bit of a way to remove the dopamine high, or make it slightly worse, would be to have the kid physically hand you the money before they open the case so they feel the pain of spending the cash.

Which surely only works for older kids who've had the experience of earning money with hard graft.

Well, you can do it the good ol' way with ceramic piggy banks that do not open but need to be crashed with a hammer.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#224

Post by NohatCoder » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

ahakki wrote: post #211

NohatCoder wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sticker pack "whale" might be down $50, these games might crave a hundred to a thousand times that. Also while kids make the headlines, grown ups are a far bigger market. Simply banning loot boxes for kids is to ignore the majority of the problem.

The price to fill the World Cup 2018 Panini Sticker album is on average more than 800 Euros. If you can swap with a couple of friends (10+) the average price goes down to ~300 Euros. A sticker pack whale will spend hundreds of Euros. If you only wanna spend 50 bucks better get another hobby tbh.

£150 for 3x500 stickers at Amazon. That should leave you missing approximately 75 stickers, which you can buy as singletons directly from Panini, at £0.25 a piece. So you can do it for £170 with absolutely no social interaction required. Definitely an unreasonable amount for a bunch of stickers, but still peanuts compared to what a freemium video game can cost.

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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#225

Post by dragontamer » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

scandinavegan wrote: post #52

ian0 wrote: post #6

Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc. He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn't actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we h…

No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there guiding him. 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, becau…

Its called a skinnerbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

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.

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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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#226

Post by kmjg88nvf8 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

Spooks wrote: post #141

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of pocket money is usually that kids can spend it on what they want. That includes sweets. Although of course parents can say "no" - but that goes for virtual items, too. 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…

If people learnt not to gamble by gambling there would be nobody with gambling problems. Teaching kids how not to gamble by gambling can be pretty bad for people who have addictive personalities, getting that gambling high and wanting to replicate that again and again. Teaching your kid it is a waste of money and not to endorse that practice might be a better choice.

It's not "teaching not to gamble by gambling", obviously. You have to talk with your kid, explain the methods of the gambling games, and stuff like that.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#227

Post by kmjg88nvf8 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:20 PM UTC

Kpourdeilami wrote: post #161

falcolas wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with much more money at stake You can literally spend tens of thousands of dollars in FIFA - most of these games don’t incorporate any kind of cap. Even Apex Legends recently had a limited time promotion that would require in excess of $200 to get everything. That’s right up there with gambling, cars, technology, and significant others when it comes to real life spending for most people.

Fifa is the biggest offender IMO, you can spend $10k on loot boxes and you'd still not get the top tier players in the game. Around $150 CAD gets you around 100,000 in-game coins considering average yield from loot boxes. A player like Ronaldo costs 2.5 to 3 million coins (aka $3750 to $4500) for the first 4-5 months of each game cycle. And he's not even the most expensive card in the game, some cards trade for 15 mi…

You can play without Ronaldo, though? Who pays the 10k? Is it unsuspecting kids, or rich people who don't care?

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#228

Post by dragontamer » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:21 PM UTC

antpls wrote: post #42

If we ban loot boxes in video games, why dont we ban Magic/Pokemon card boosters that you can buy from physical shops? As it's written in the article, problems arise for a minority of children. From the article, we know little about the background of these children and about their parents. It is possible that those children would have developed an addiction to something else if it wasn't video games loot boxes. Yes,…

> If we ban loot boxes in video games, why dont we ban Magic/Pokemon card boosters that you can buy from physical shops?

Because I can buy the actual cards I want on the secondary market and avoid the bullcrap that is booster-packs.

Secondly: Drafting and "Sealed" decks are extremely fun. Being stuck with only 6-booster packs worth of cards (no trading allowed) is great. You have enough cards to probably make a good deck. MTG is well balanced that some of the best cards are common (Lightning Bolt, Doom Blade, etc. etc. are "power" commons that would be a first-pick in drafts). So the drafting / sealed format ensures that most decks have the important, powerful, cards needed to make a decent deck.

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You can't sell skins on a secondary market. Heck, you don't even own the skins in a video game.

In effect, MTG is fine because the company who makes MTG cards aren't predatory assholes. MTG could very well become predatory in the future, but they're actually very well balanced in my experience.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#229

Post by ljm » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #120

scandinavegan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there guiding him. 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, becau…

I mean when I was a kid you'd get this sticker album for your favourite thing(be it football players, star wars, whatever) and I'd always beg mum to get me yet another sticker pack so I could complete my collection. There were always stickers that I really really wanted and yeah, the disappointment of going through a few packs and not getting what you wanted was very real. I think ultimately, this is the same thing -…

The thing about sticker packs, Pokémon cards, etc. is that you could trade the ones you didn't want with your friends, so even getting a shiny that you already had was exciting because then you had something that you could swap for another shiny or a couple of lower-value cards/stickers. You'd naturally come to the point where some stickers were much more frequent than others so you'd end up with this little schoolyard economy where everybody knew what was worthless and what wasn't. Once your collection is complete there's no reason to buy any more. Hell, some of those things even become collectors items and retain some value over time.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#230

Post by falcolas » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #227

Kpourdeilami wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifa is the biggest offender IMO, you can spend $10k on loot boxes and you'd still not get the top tier players in the game. Around $150 CAD gets you around 100,000 in-game coins considering average yield from loot boxes. A player like Ronaldo costs 2.5 to 3 million coins (aka $3750 to $4500) for the first 4-5 months of each game cycle. And he's not even the most expensive card in the game, some cards trade for 15 mi…

You can play without Ronaldo, though? Who pays the 10k? Is it unsuspecting kids, or rich people who don't care?

Addicted normal folks, usually. It’s really hard to tell how much you’ve spent, with all the auto purchases and currency redirects.