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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#241

Post by amyjess » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #215

gambiting wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is the same though. With pinball you pay 20c or whatever, and you get to play the game. That's it. It's like paying $100 for an entry ticket into a bike race - you pay, you get to do the activity, the outcome is "random" in that it only depends on your own skill and external factors. With sticker packs the contents are truly random, there is no skill involved, you literally don't know what you are bu…

Pinball games at the time often paid out prizes and didn’t always do so based solely on skill. The shift towards the modern idea of what pinball machines are like today was a reaction to laws threatening to ban them.

For anyone who's curious, this article has some more details on this: https://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-deat...

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#242

Post by daemin » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #207

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,…

Your first point is actually the opposite of what the law says. > 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.

Depending on the game they kind of do. There's trading and gambling on CS-GO skins, places where you can get real world money for them. For games like EA sport games in their online competition thing, you need to have the best players in order to compete, therefore there's a minimum you need to spend in order to get those players. You need to do that in order to have a hope of winning competitions and earn some money. So while you can't just cash out directly there are ways in which it can be done.

The thing with Magic Cards though is that when you buy a pack you still end up with a bunch of physical magic cards which you own and can do with as you please. Either sell them, trade them, give them away, or burn them in a fire. With digital goods from loot boxes this is rarely if ever possible.

Now ask yourself which would you rather have, something physical which you can do something with once you no longer want to play the game, or something digital which is useless and has no value once you stop playing the game (or even when next year's game comes out).

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#243

Post by amyjess » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

moate wrote: post #236

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can also use your packs to draft Magic. Even if you don't get the cards you want, you still get to play a fun game.

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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#244

Post by droithomme » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #225

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…

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. Th…

It's not as fatalistic as you suggest: that randomly offered rewards always lead to complete zombie slave status in 100% of subjects, there's no way out, and the situation is hopeless.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#245

Post by amyjess » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

jason46 wrote: post #220

save_ferris wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One major difference to point out is that fortnite doesn’t have loot boxes, you know exactly what you’re getting when spending their online currency. 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.

I feel 20 or so years ago kids that spent money on something that didn't provide a clear benefit would have been bullied. My wife was a gamer, when my son first asked for a gift card to buy a skin it was fun watching him try to explain that there is no benefit and it only changes the look. My wife kept asking him why do you want this?

20 years ago, kids were being bullied for not wearing Abercrombie & Fitch.

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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#246

Post by bluecalm » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

daemin wrote: post #111

bluecalm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think education would be more effective than a ban. Teach children to recognize gambling at early stage. Show them with examples how the house/gaming studio wins by exploiting human nature. If you just protect children from exposure to gambling you will end up with vulnerable adults and adults don't have a guardian who can stop the bleeding even if the cost is a lot of kicking and screaming.

Gambling is already banned for people under the age of 18 in nearly the whole world. Why should digital gambling be exempted from this and instead we would need to "educate" children about its dangers? If it's gambling it shouldn't be for children.

I know tens of people who got into trouble because of gambling as I spent most of my adult life in gambling world. None of them got exposure to it as a child. Losing toy money in soft form of gambling may be a valuable lesson for the future while still having a protective umbrella children enjoy. Worst that can happen is some kicking and screaming where the child discovers something they wanted to buy in the game isn't provided and there is no more money to spend. With an adult coming across the same deceptive mechanism for the first time the results could be and very often are tragic.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#247

Post by hanselot » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

dpcan wrote: post #234

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?

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…

Wearing a helmet is a good idea? Obviously, but you get much less fun out of that experience. Additionally you are suggesting we decelerate natural selection even more than we already have? Considering the number of humans around, I would consider the abolishing of common sense regulations to be a nett benefit for the Earth.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#248

Post by nabergh » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

tablethnuser wrote: post #189

Remember when loot boxes promising valuable rookie cards of baseball players captured America's youth and squandered the nation's fortune back in the 20th century? Or the countless families devastated by beanie baby addiction? Me neither. Collectibles aren't the problem. And it isn't gambling if you can't cash out. Why do you think there's so many casino games in the app stores even though digital gambling is illegal…

I don't think people are arguing that collectibles are the problem. They're arguing that the gambling is.

In this context, we're defining gambling as exchanging money for a chance at receiving something of value. I think that's a reasonable definition and it certainly fits here.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#249

Post by amyjess » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

kmlx wrote: post #16

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'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.…

Honestly, I wouldn't even play a game where paying for power-ups was the norm. It's not something I'm interested in.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#250

Post by cameronbrown » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #41

kmlx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but fashion in games? paying for worthless pixels? i do get what you're saying thou...

Online multiplayer games are how kids socialise online these days. They don't meet up on Facebook, they meet up on Fortnite or Minecraft. Appearance is an important status indicator.

At least Minecraft doesn't charge you to change your skin.