Well, no, it can be a report of the authors of the study, but if they don't publish the study I don't know what they're talking about. I didn't poke around much, because if all my security is blocking content and blaring warnings it's probably not a great idea, but at a glance in the direct link I didn't find a link to the contents of the report proper.
To your question, it wouldn't change whether loot boxes are gambling, in that my position is that they are not regardless. It also wouldn't change whether they're worth regulating, in that my position is age ratings agencies should have a policy about it, but that's about it.
But in practical and political terms that's not what originated the panic in the first place, so whether the presence of loot boxes is growing or shrinking does go towards whether the PR impact of abusive practices and self-regulation is sufficient to address the issue.
Hirom@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
That’s if and maybe. I would assume neither, but will keep an open mind in case evidence appear.
Let’s assume Loot Boxes are on the wane. Do we actually know they were on the wane BEFORE regulation passed (which started happening several years ago), or whether regulation caused them to wane? Do we know that self-regulation efficient for loot boxes? Self regulation results vary a lot, and is often ineffective, so I’m skeptical.
On the other hand, there is evince linking paying for loot boxes to gambling addiction, and plausibility since loot box exploit human’s tendency to look for rewards to extract money from players. There’s clearly a problem, and I wouldn’t bet on the companies that created it solving the problem.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
OK, if you want to play it like that, let me start by challenging a couple of assumptions.
First, the relevance of linking loot boxes to problem gambling. Ultimately gambling is not illegal, so this doesn't inherently suggest that the situation demands new legislation. The worst case scenario here is loot boxes are made analogous to gambling, which is presumably already as regulated as it's going to get on each territory. There's a lot more to question there, as there was on all the frankly sloppy analysis on the links of gaming to violence in the 90s, but there is an implication at the core of the attempt to link them in the first place that I don't think is justified.
Second, I dispute the need for them being on the wane predating your gate for legislation. For one thing, you're not being explicit about when "regulation" by your definition starts. By the way you've sourced it you can arbitrarily choose any point in time. For another, it makes sense that regulation and self-regulation would happen in parallel. Ultimately bad PR and negative research motivates both public and private action. Again I refer to the 90s violent game panic. If the probes on gaming violence motivated the creation of age ratings agencies for gaming, does that mean the age ratings weren't enough of a mitigation and they should have deployed anti-violence legislation? I'm going to pretty strongly argue that's not the case.
Also, I feel you're misrepresenting the metastudy you provide on the results of self regulation. High compliance/high effectiveness is the biggest segment on all counts. Granted, on roughly half of the studies, but a lot more studies find self-regulation to work than not, by that metric. Why is "a small but replicable correlation" such a concern but a majority of studies finding self-regulation is highly effective a mixed result you don't trust? Seems to me you're not treating all the references you're using the same way.
FWIW, I find this conversation not particularly productive because, frankly, with these things the literature gets to be a huge mess. Again, my reference is the 90s violence campaigns, where so many terrible papers were being funded and published the academic conversation became entirely impractical. The fact is gaming did need some age ratings standard and it made sense for national agencies to exist to manage them. And it makes sense for those same agencies to have explicit policies not just on loot boxes, but on all in-game monetization. The industry needs best practices and safeguards. And the public, incidentally, needs a LOT more awareness of why self-declaring age in accounts is important and what safeguards are already in place as it is, because there is a ton of parental control and underage protection that kicks in but nobody is particularly aware of.
But instead gamers whose concern with loot boxes is primarily artistic have been rooting for overreach in hopes the result is games they like more. I find that risky and problematic, and the idea of Brazil's government passing wide-ranging age verfication regulation and having English-speaking media and social media report on it based on a mostly reasonable mandate of loot box games carrying an 18+ rating more concerning than any of the underlying issues being addressed.
Hirom@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
I’m not convinced an outright ban would be helpful. Regulation focused on harm reduction, ie restricting to adult like various kind of gambling, would be less heavyhanded, hopefully better compromise.
Looping back on the earlier comments, adding extra requirements on age verification is the more controversial part. Especially since privacy-preserving solutions aren’t ready. Clearly neither of us are happy with that.
I’d be happy if regulators just categorized loot box as gambling, applying the existing declarative age verification that already apply to gambling.
The choice between state regulation and self-regulation depend on various factors, eg exactly how it’s implemented, people’s opinion on freedom to operate companies without state intervention. A meta-analysis conclude results vary a lot from self regulation, it can go well or fail. This is just an opinion and nothing definitive, but I don’t think the game editors that make money from setup efficient self-regulation. It would hurt their bottom line.
MudMan@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
I don't think an outright ban would be acceptable at all or grounded in any kind of proportionality. It's one thing to use gambling as a guilt-by-association thing, but if gambling isn't outright illegal even in that somewhat fallacious interpretation an outright ban would be absurd.
Which is something I feel a lot of the people rallying against this practice often didn't think through, but hey.
I still disagree with your interpretation of that literature review.
That's less "it's a crapshoot" and more "it generally works, especially if there is an overisght body".
Which in this case there absolutely is, given that this all slots into pre-existing age ratings and content warnings. Your misgivings don't line up with the data you provide and don't line up with pre-existing analogous self-regulation.
I've seen nothing to suggest this is any more problematic than either other types of monetization or other types of content restriction, and the big differentiator between violent/sexual content and this seems to be whether the segment of the userbase that posts online likes it as a matter of creative opinion.