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Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#231

Post by dpcan »

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…

No no no no no.

"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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#232

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

beatgammit wrote: post #174
beobab wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. I definitely don't like the "give me a ton of money, and you might get what you want" payment mechanism. I saw it with PacMan cards and football cards back in the 80's, and then Pokemon cards for my own children. 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.

With Pokemon cards, you can at least buy specific cards from sellers. Many loot box items cannot be traded.

Trading would make things so much worse. See CSGO skins. Then you have grey/black market gambling sites.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#233

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

input_sh wrote: post #202
SkyBelow wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not seeing how this is any different than Pokemon cards where I saw the same behavior in kids back then. Is it because these days companies have thrown far more psychology at optimizing it?

> Is it because these days companies have thrown far more psychology at optimizing it? 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…

No, they definitely had those special, more expensive packs for Pokemon, and Yugioh.

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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#234

Post by dpcan »

SkyBelow wrote: post #194
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…

I'm still not seeing how this is any different than Pokemon cards where I saw the same behavior in kids back then. Is it because these days companies have thrown far more psychology at optimizing it?

2 wrongs don't make a right.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#235

Post by davemp »

bsder wrote: post #79
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? I don't necessarily disagree. However, if I want card X for Magic/Pokemon, I can look up the card online, find its value, and buy the card . Sure, I can buy booster packs, but they are not the only way to get the card I want. With online games, loot boxes are often the only way to get what you want…

> However, if I want card X for Magic/Pokemon, I can look up the card online, find its value, and buy the card. Sure, I can buy booster packs, but they are not the only way to get the card I want.

If anything, Magic teaches you that gambling is usually the worst way to get the card you want.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#236

Post by moate »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #193
gambiting wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

My feeling is that randomized packs of baseball cards were never great either—but they were never pervasive enough to be a "problem". 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.

One major difference between Magic and most skinner box video games: I can sell my magic cards for real world money, and I can just buy the cards I need as singles.

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...

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#237

Post by droithomme »

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…

I dealt with my kids getting scammed like this in the past. I laughed and mocked them and explained how the scam works and how these companies hire industrial psychologists to facilitate their cons. Then learn how to avoid the scam in the future, and also later mock and ridicule their friends who fall for similar scams. This results in those friends learning to avoid these scams and teach others how not to get fooled.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#238

Post by reggieband »

dTal wrote: post #88
kmlx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've played apex legend for more than 50 hours, and had no idea you could actually spend money in that game. 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 would gladly pay games for a leg up (better weapons, higher jumps, that sort of thing) 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.

Not the original poster, but paying for advantages in games is pretty common. I think of golf, where people will pay big money for expensive equipment that marginally improves performance. Or even more so the Sailing World Cup Series where the main differentiator is the cost of the boat. I assume F1 racing is like that as well.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#239

Post by daemin »

SkyBelow wrote: post #201
daemin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Magic is different is for 2 major reasons: 1) You can sell your cards and get money from them (could be less, could be more) and they have some tangible value to other people. 2) You don't have to acquire magic cards through booster packs (aka loot boxes) only. If you want a particular card then you can go to the store and buy it. This was the major concern from the parent in the top comment of this post,…

>1) You can sell your cards and get money from them (could be less, could be more) and they have some tangible value to other people. Shouldn't this make it a bigger problem, not a smaller one? >2) You don't have to acquire magic cards through booster packs (aka loot boxes) only. If you want a particular card then you can go to the store and buy it. This was the major concern from the parent in the top comment of thi…

To be able to have point #2 you have to have point #1. Someone has to take the risk to open the booster packs and get those cards out onto the market. Sometimes business oriented people do that, other times a group of friends buy a booster box to play with at the time. At least in these circumstances the people opening the packs know what could happen.

I think if you could buy all of the items that were included in these loot boxes then it wouldn't be as bad. You want skin X, just go ahead and buy it. However there would still be a problem as people might pay way too much trying to get that expensive item in a loot box than just paying for it.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#240

Post by decoyworker »

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,…

They probably should be. If you are buying a chance then it is gambling. If it is gambling then laws should treat it as gambling.
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