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

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#171

Post by falcolas » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:46 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…

Well, when they (publishers in general) put the chances at getting the good characters and skins behind "less than 1% chance", and fill the loot pool with useless cruft when there's an anti-dupe mechanism, it's going to be super expensive to get the exact character/skin you want.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#172

Post by ssully » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

skocznymroczny wrote: post #82

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…

It doesn't allow you to buy the skins directly? In most F2P games I played (HotS, Paladins), you get random skins in lootboxes, but you can buy the skin directly, it just costs more than the lootbox (but obviously much cheaper than buying lootboxes hoping for that one specific skin).

Apex let's you buy most skins directly, but only using a currency you earn from playing or by getting duplicate items from boxes. You can also earn skins from boxes that you earn from leveling up, or by buying directly.

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#173

Post by beatgammit » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

jacobush wrote: post #147

circlefavshape wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most parents would be more worried about alcoholism and/or risky levels of drunkenness than total consumption.

Wouldn't alcoholism be very correlated with total consumption?

Maybe? There's a lot of other things to consider, such as the number of drinkers and whether it's customary to drink throughout the day or only during a small window (night).

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#174

Post by beatgammit » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

beobab wrote: post #18

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…

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#175

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #146

esotericn wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think "just digitized" captures the problem with these boxes. 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 e…

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.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#176

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #99

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…

> As I'm writing this though, I'm not entirely sure what makes fruit machine bad, football stickers good. 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.

Loot boxes for tradeable items move away from this. My kids want to open cases in CSGO because they think they'll win a skin they can sell for a lot of money. Winning money is the motivator.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#177

Post by beatgammit » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:06 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,…

I buy booster packs for MTG because I like drafting and sealed deck events. Randomness here is a good thing because it makes gameplay more skill based than money based when compared to constructed decks (build from your collection).

If I want a specific card, I'm not going to gamble with boosters, I'll just buy the card outright at the store.

And that's the primary reason I stopped playing online games like MTGA and Eternal: playing draft was too expensive and not as fun as playing in person. A lot of people online would "rare draft" instead of drafting to win, and the social aspect is completely missing compared to FNM. I think that's because you can't trade cards online, so your options are: pull the cards you want or use craft them, and rare drafting improves your ability to do both.

I'm not very happy about the direction online gaming is going, so I'll have to be very careful about how I introduce my children to the concept to help them see it for what it is.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#178

Post by pnongrata » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

ian0 wrote: post #83

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…

Thats a good point! 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 :)

For every kid that "learns his lesson" there are tons who don't, who don't have parents or hey are just too busy to "guide" them through this experience. The whole thing is designed to wire your brain to increase engagement,as in addiction.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#179

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:13 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…

I think if we were starting to see these physical card packs now we would probably have a similar reaction as we're having to loot boxes but since they're older and a more normal part they're not getting as much scrutiny. Digital packs can do a lot more skinner boxing though with sound and visual cues going along with chest opening and the little dopamine hit for getting a rare item.

One thing I will say is there is a big difference between the digital version of these loot box/card pack mechanics and the physical ones; it's way easier to just keep buying the digital packs, especially for kids who may have a loose grasp of money matters anyways. There's no total racking up where they can see it and their account will generally be link to their parents card where if they want to keep buying physical packs it'd be their own (probably physical) money.

As for limiting that spending some places make it hard to limit the amount spent on child accounts until quite recently.

Re: Ban kids from loot box gambling in games

#180

Post by darepublic » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

Too old to have gambled in games as a kid, but I was at the right age for the POG phenomenon. I remember a rough afternoon at the schoolyard where I went past my limit and lost some of my most cherished pogs.