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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#161

Post by Kpourdeilami » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #159

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #7

Where does the money come from, that the kids spend? Shouldn't it be the parents concern to limit the spending? While I despise many of the techniques used in modern games to make kids spend money, I also prefer them learning about these things in games, rather than in the real world (with much more money at stake). One thing that cost us a lot of money for example are the "Panini collectible cards", that predate the…

> 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 million coins. To unlock all the top players for your team, you'd probably have to spend way over $10k. To top if off, every Sept. a new game comes out and you have start from scratch

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#162

Post by dangerface » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

kmjg88nvf8 wrote: post #7

Where does the money come from, that the kids spend? Shouldn't it be the parents concern to limit the spending? While I despise many of the techniques used in modern games to make kids spend money, I also prefer them learning about these things in games, rather than in the real world (with much more money at stake). One thing that cost us a lot of money for example are the "Panini collectible cards", that predate the…

> Shouldn't it be the parents concern to limit the spending?

It should be, but the kids pay the price. Most parents don't care because the gambling is disguised as a game, they make it hard to track spending by making you buy and spend fake money, this again reinforces the idea that it's not real money, it's all just a fun game.

> I also prefer them learning about these things in games, rather than in the real world (with much more money at stake).

The money, games and people that are affected all exist in the real world, just because it's themed as a game does nothing to prevent the harm gambling can cause.

Loot boxes aren't cheap [0] estimated $50 billion spent on loot boxes, there is serious money at stake comparable with the gambling industry [1] estimated $73 billion spent on online gambling.

Game developers are able to get away with this practice because they push the idea that it's all just fun and games but its not, they have taken a gambling mechanic like for like its gambling.

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/04/17/video-game... [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-online-gambl...

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#163

Post by CloudNetworking » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #57

crispyporkbites wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s exactly the same reason people pay for fashion. The clothes don’t provide practical benefit, yet people still pay 100x more for branding. And you can’t hack this because these are multiplayer games.

Fashion smells like classism to me. I don't see anyone below a certain tax bracket playing the fashion game. Fortnite has already become kind of classist, with the well-off kids bullying people who don't gamble their parent's money for skins. I think the whole system is name-brand evil.

> I don't see anyone below a certain tax bracket playing the fashion game.

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? :)

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#164

Post by mcrocop309 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:28 PM UTC

Don't expose kids to gambling until they're ready to lose real money and seriously mess up their lives.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#165

Post by castlecrasher2 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #122

benj111 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The old era football cards (and tea cards and petrol stickers or coins) where there were no intentionally rare ones, just randomly stuffing a few into packets, were OK. You traded a few in the playground, just about everyone got the set by end of school year. 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…

> The modern ones with carefully created low drop rate "rare" cards are lottery scratch card gambling.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#166

Post by mcrocop309 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

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…

Let him lose his money so he understands how it feels. It might prevent him from losing his house to bookies in the future.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#167

Post by lawtalkinghuman » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:31 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?

Video games are always available. You can purchase lootboxes 24/7 without any real effort. They use the same techniques to manipulate people as various casino gambling games. There have been players, especially some with learning difficulties, who haven't really been able to tell the difference between virtual currencies and real currencies and have ended up spending quite staggering amounts of money on lootboxes or virtual crap.

Pokemon cards, Panini football stickers and so on generally have to be purchased in a real world shop - either a newsagent or a comic book or games shop. There is a physical limit there, and a limit imposed by social reality. I'd like to think that if a twelve-year old walked into my local supermarket and wanted to buy £1,000 worth of Pokemon cards, the shop owner would probably query whether that's a good idea.

(There's also the issue that, strictly, by common law in England, any contract entered into by a minor for all but the most essential goods is voidable on the grounds of capacity.)

Lootboxes and gambling-like mechanics now exist in all sorts of games. The latest FIFA game has lootboxes and has been determined by PEGI to be rated '3+' and by the ESRB to be suitable for 'E' (Everyone). Up until they were patched out in response to critique, NBA 2K20's lootbox functionality took the form of literal slot reels, in a $60 premium game.

If a parent goes and buys children Pokemon cards or Panini stickers, they kind of know what's going on. If a parent goes and buys a game with zombies and chainsaws on the cover, and a Mature or Adults-Only rating from the ESRB/PEGI, they know their kids might see a fair amount of blood and guts.

No ordinary person who isn't familiar with the details of the video game industry thinks a FIFA or NBA game contains gambling. When faced with Doom, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, something like FIFA or NBA 2K seems a relatively 'safe' option - except 3+/Suitable for Everyone rated games now have gambling in them.

For some real examples of how this is affecting people: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48925623

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#168

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

AJ007 wrote: post #151

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 -…

There was literally the exact same claims being made about kids being turned in to gamblers by pinball games decades ago: “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 machi…

There is more to that story. Pinball and other gaming machines were rackets mostly controlled by the mafia and others of that ilk.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#169

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #158

TeMPOraL wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By mentioning large bureaucratic structures like corporation and calling them "non-human actors", I wanted to focus your attention on the fact that behavior of a group of people working together, cooperating and competing with other such groups of people, is not well-predicted by looking at behavior of each individual involved. Much like you don't reason about a computer system by looking at what each transistor and…

That’s simply not true. Large organisations of people have decision makers, and their decisions can be predicted just as well as anybody else’s. Perhaps your confusion lies in the fact that in an organisation, not everybody is going to have equal influence over decisions, therefor your suggestion that every individual be accounted for in such predictions is pointless.

Perhaps. But I feel you're overestimating just how much choice the decision makers have. The interactions between an organization and the rest of the market severely constrain the space of choices available to decision makers, and there may very well be no good/ethical course of action available to them (except resigning and passing the choice to someone else, which isn't an attractive option either).

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#170

Post by jbms » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:45 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…

There is permanent damage if you rewire your kids brain chemistry to get addicted to the near-miss of getting something good. Logical explanations don't undo that.

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.