Gambling addiction in young video game players?

squintz

Pirate Lord
I saw this the other day, it's been going on for a few years in different countries and games, but is universal in it's concept.
People, young kids as well, paying real money for something that isn't revealed until AFTER they pay. Almost all governments now claim this is a form of gambling and the game sellers are causing gambling problems in the gaming world. Clearly EA and other publishers have no problem promoting gambling in this way. It's making them immense profits. Blizzard so far has kept this concept out of their biggest franchise WOW. But now that activision and blizzard merged somehow, I see activision possibly ruining the WOW franchise by doing in game purchasing. But I do believe bliz has in game purchase for many of their other titles. Sure, it's a way for big profits, but at what price?

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46286945

Related video: The video itself is the topic, the uboob publisher is not part of the article, nor are the comments. I wouldn't even bother reading the comment trash.

 
I don't think I've ever bought anything in a game, although I do remember once playing one of those carnival games where you throw darts at balloons. I don't know if that counts, but my friends had done it so much they ran out of money, and I had no idea what they were doing since I was admiring a carousel and I pitched in some money out of pity and got wrapped up, I ended up losing about $30, and my friend got one stuffed animal which was really cheap.
Another thing that I don't know if it counts or not but my friend was telling me today that he had decided to buy some weapons in a game for about $5 each. He said they were really bad and he didn't know about that until after the fact.

My friends at school had started a game where they bet pencils as well, despite a rule which pretty much says that students could get suspended for gambling. One of my friends apparently had an entire large pencil box full of pencils and lost most of them once he found someone who matched him at the game.

Just a few of my personal encounters with teen gambling, sadly.
 
I don't think I've ever bought anything in a game, although I do remember once playing one of those carnival games where you throw darts at balloons. I don't know if that counts, but my friends had done it so much they ran out of money, and I had no idea what they were doing since I was admiring a carousel and I pitched in some money out of pity and got wrapped up, I ended up losing about $30, and my friend got one stuffed animal which was really cheap.
Another thing that I don't know if it counts or not but my friend was telling me today that he had decided to buy some weapons in a game for about $5 each. He said they were really bad and he didn't know about that until after the fact.

My friends at school had started a game where they bet pencils as well, despite a rule which pretty much says that students could get suspended for gambling. One of my friends apparently had an entire large pencil box full of pencils and lost most of them once he found someone who matched him at the game.

Just a few of my personal encounters with teen gambling, sadly.
I guess pledging your own money to someone else that has an element of unknown chance would be considered gambling. Giving you odds does not change that. One doesn't know who's going to win the race, fight or draw. That's pure chance. All carny games could be considered gambling perhaps. But due to they're inside a private venue open to the public, there may be other laws and since you see what stuffed piece of crap you can win plus it's you throwing darts which could be the 'chance' part of it, ie: you hitting the balloon or not could still be gambling?
Buying weapons or 'clothes' (fortnite) in game one knows what they are and it's upon them to research to know the capabilities of same. That is on him that the weapons were not good enough. But loot boxes don't reveal what quality you get, and that's the chance you take in buying them, thus gambling.
Price is right is gambling. But they're adults.
 
I guess pledging your own money to someone else that has an element of unknown chance would be considered gambling. Giving you odds does not change that. One doesn't know who's going to win the race, fight or draw. That's pure chance. All carny games could be considered gambling perhaps. But due to they're inside a private venue open to the public, there may be other laws and since you see what stuffed piece of crap you can win plus it's you throwing darts which could be the 'chance' part of it, ie: you hitting the balloon or not could still be gambling?
Buying weapons or 'clothes' (fortnite) in game one knows what they are and it's upon them to research to know the capabilities of same. That is on him that the weapons were not good enough. But loot boxes don't reveal what quality you get, and that's the chance you take in buying them, thus gambling.
Price is right is gambling. But they're adults.
My friend didn't tell me much of if he knew what the weapons were or anything like that, but yeah. After the whole game thing, my parents pretty much lectured me on gambling.
I've never watched the price is right or any of those game shows with the spin the wheel things. They never seemed interesting to me.
 
My friend didn't tell me much of if he knew what the weapons were or anything like that, but yeah. After the whole game thing, my parents pretty much lectured me on gambling.
I've never watched the price is right or any of those game shows with the spin the wheel things. They never seemed interesting to me.
lol... I was like 30, before I realized price is right is one gigantic mind numbing commercial. You guess crap about grocery products and merchandise and products behind the curtain and then cut to another commercial about the very same products the 372 pound lady dressed like a goth raggity ann doll got all the prices wrong seconds before. It's a half hour commercial with commercial breaks.

In fortnite, I guess you're not gambling, but if you're getting surprise unknowns, then it might be gambling and fortnite will be called out on it, but they got you hooked on the second strongest emotion, vanity. The cool factor. What nonsense.
 
Wizards 101 does this a lot with there "card packs" Players have spent tons of money trying to get the ultra rare items in them, and you can buy 100 and still not get it. One of the reasons my friends and I don't play it anymore.
 
Wizards 101 does this a lot with there "card packs" Players have spent tons of money trying to get the ultra rare items in them, and you can buy 100 and still not get it. One of the reasons my friends and I don't play it anymore.
So, people are paying real currency for a 'chance' at a quality item? It's not a listed guaranteed item being exchanged? At the time of purchase?
That's the description that has loot boxes in trouble. wiz 101 is using gambling, no matter what catchy name the game calls it.
They will get called out on it. Probably soon, as this was going down last year and I've seen some quiet changes.
Game developers are not admitting to anything, they're just quietly changing stuff and making it seem like they meant to do it.

Even if you're buying game tokens with real money then buying the cards, that doesn't make it any less than gambling. That's disguising the mechanism.
 
lol... I was like 30, before I realized price is right is one gigantic mind numbing commercial. You guess crap about grocery products and merchandise and products behind the curtain and then cut to another commercial about the very same products the 372 pound lady dressed like a goth raggity ann doll got all the prices wrong seconds before. It's a half hour commercial with commercial breaks.

In fortnite, I guess you're not gambling, but if you're getting surprise unknowns, then it might be gambling and fortnite will be called out on it, but they got you hooked on the second strongest emotion, vanity. The cool factor. What nonsense.
Sounds like a really pleasant show and as entertaining as the channels which only show the things that you can expect from other channels with elevator music in the background, lol

I've never played Fortnite, but I do know that sense of the unknown thing. In an app I use called Amino(Which is not a game, but a social media thing that used to have a cool concept but now it seems to have turned into a wannabe Tiktok or Instagram or whatever) and each day it has a 'pick a card' when you log in and 'check-in' to one of your communities. After picking a card, it gives you a randomized number of coins, most of the time being one coin, but I've gotten up to six. You don't have to pay any money for it, but it does provide lots of motivation to buy coins so you can get the membership that lets you do all sorts of fun things like sending videos that are on your phone instead of just youtube videos, and for some reason, HD images. I really don't know what else other than 'stickers.'
But I'm getting off topic, I hope you understand my point lol. It isn't gambling, but it's kinda like a free loot box.
 
So, people are paying real currency for a 'chance' at a quality item? It's not a listed guaranteed item being exchanged? At the time of purchase?
That's the description that has loot boxes in trouble. wiz 101 is using gambling, no matter what catchy name the game calls it.
They will get called out on it. Probably soon, as this was going down last year and I've seen some quiet changes.
Game developers are not admitting to anything, they're just quietly changing stuff and making it seem like they meant to do it.

Even if you're buying game tokens with real money then buying the cards, that doesn't make it any less than gambling. That's disguising the mechanism.
I have no idea what Wizard 101 is other than some ads I had seen on tv one time, but I completely agree with your last point. I always found in-game money that can be bought with real money a pretty stupid idea that takes out the fun of actually playing the game to get the money(if you can get the in-game money through killing enemies, completing quests, or selling items).
 
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