Are Loot Boxes Gambling? Random reward mechanisms in video games


Lundedal Nielsen Rune Kristian Grabarczyk Paweł
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

In this paper we investigate the phenomenon colloquially known as “loot boxes” or “loot crates”. Loot boxes became a hot topic towards the end of 2017 when several legislative bodies proposed that they were essentially gambling mechanisms and should therefore be legislated as such. We argue that the term “loot box” and the phenomena it covers are not sufficiently precise for academic use and instead introduce the notion of “random reward mechanisms” (RRMs). We offer a categorization of RRMs, which distinguishes between RRMs that are either “isolated” from real world economies or “embedded” in them. This distinction will be useful in discussion about loot boxes in general, but specifically when it comes to the question of whether or not they represent instances of gambling. We argue that all classes of RRMs have gambling-like features, but that only one class can be considered to be genuine gambling.

 

Two Worlds, One Gameplay: A Classification of Visual AR Games


Knauer Marina Mütterlein Joschka
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

At the end of the last century, augmented reality (AR), i.e. the enrichment of our perception with digital information, was said to be the new striking technology. Yet, games are still one of the fewest considered application areas although researchers have frequently emphasized that the technology is destined for games (eg. Feiner et al. 1997, van Krevelen and Poelman 2010). Previous works on AR games form an inconsistent field of study. In order to advance research in this fragmented field and to offer a reference point for further research and practical applications, we develop a classification of AR games using three sources: an extensive literature review, a Delphi survey (Linstone and Turoff 1975), and the usage of AR in selected fictional works. The result classifies AR games according to four criteria: the used device, the tracking technology, the setting of both the device and the player, i.e. where and how the game is played, and the orientation alongside the left section of the reality-virtuality-continuum (Milgram et al. 1994) in relation to the goal of the game.

 

DeFragging Regulation: From putative effects to ‘researched’ accounts of player experience


Schott Gareth Marczak Raphaël Mäyrä Frans van Vught Jasper
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

In line with the conference theme for 2013, this paper introduces a research project that is seeking to ‘defragment’ research dealing with player experiences. Located at an intersection between humanities, social sciences and computer sciences, our research aims to achieve greater receptiveness for accounts of games that emphasise “the relationship between the structure of a game and the way people engage with that system” (Waern, 2012, p.1) in the context of game regulation. Working specifically within the context of the New Zealand classification system, which possesses a legally enforceable age-restriction system, the project seeks to strengthen regulators capacity to utilize Section 3(4) of the current Classification Act and support the employment of concepts such as ‘dominant effect’, ‘merit’ and ‘purpose’ when classifying games (OFLC, 2012). Extending an established appreciation within game studies for the way games produce polysemic performances and readings, this paper draws on our mixed methods approach in an exploration of the nature of a players’ experience with Max Payne 3 (Rockstar Vancouver). In doing so, we illustrate the different dynamics at play in its expression and use of violence - dynamics that fail to achieve expression when games are considered more generally within political and social realms.

 

Age-Restriction: Re-examining the interactive experience of ‘harmful’ game content


van Vught Jasper Schott Gareth Marczak Raphaël
2012 DiGRA Nordic '12: Proceedings of 2012 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

Similar to the classification rating of films, screen depictions of violence within digital games are issued with an age restriction rating. Such approaches still fail to adequately incorporate players’ experience of the screen, confounded by the medium’s interactive nature, in their assessments. The current failure to account for, or describe subsequent interactions between player and game text leaves the classification process largely inferential. This paper presents a framework that forms the basis for an empirical assessment of the interactive experience of games. In it, we aim to account for the processes and outcomes of play and the extent to which play relates to the design of the game text. By operationalizing game studies’ extensive theorization of the distinct quality of games, a new model of media ‘usage’ is sought to enhance regulation processes and better inform the public’s perception of games (specifically within New Zealand). In this paper we draw specifically on data produced from one part of a mixed methodology research design (Schott & Van Vught 2011). A structured diary method was employed to allow game players to chronicle different elements of their gameplay experience with a single text as they progressed through it. By demonstrating the applied value of game studies’ contribution to knowledge, the research project aims to contribute to a new paradigm that is capable of accounting for the ‘actual’ experience of play and the ways game texts are activated under the agency of players once they enter everyday life and culture.

 

Replacing preconceived accounts of digital games with experience of play: When parents went native in GTA IV


Schott Gareth van Vught Jasper
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Cautionary frameworks continue to dominate evaluations of games within political contexts, obstructing consideration of the specific conditions and experiences offered by particular game texts. This paper challenges this tendency of prior government-instigated research to promote viewpoints that are not textually evaluative or play-derived when reporting on perceptions of games possessed by the public. Instead, it prioritizes Dovey and Kennedy’s (2006) argument that ‘we cannot have recourse solely to [games] textual characteristics; we have to pay particular attention to the moment of its enactment as it is played.’ More concretely, this paper describes research sparked by the NZ Classification Office’s interest in exploring ‘the extent to which the public’s perception of causal links between game playing and various social ills’ might be ‘moderated or even undermined by [knowledge of] how players actually respond to and negotiate their way through the content and characteristics of the medium’ (OFLC 2009, 24). Using in both game-play observation and depth interviews, we concluded that the participants’ preconceptions of Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games, 2008) were drastically reevaluated after experience playing the game, shifting attitudes and beliefs as to how games should be regulated.