Mechanics on the Blockchain: A Taxonomy of NFTs in Games

It all starts with a name Mapping the terms used by researchers to describe gambling-like elements in digital games

Opening Pandora’s loot box: Weak links with gambling and player opinions on probability disclosures in China

What are the odds? Lower compliance with Western loot box probability disclosure industry selfregulation than Chinese legal regulation

Gambling for Fashion: How Videogame Designers Capitalise on ‘Status Ambivalence’ within Videogame Play

Power Play Play: Regulatory Frameworks of Esports in Asia and Europe

Paidic Money and Ludic Gambling Currencies in Novel Slot Machine Games

What do Game Developers Think about Loot Boxes?

Are Loot Boxes Gambling? Random reward mechanisms in video games

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.