<story><title>Ban kids from loot box gambling in games</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49661870</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antpls</author><text>If we ban loot boxes in video games, why dont we ban Magic&amp;#x2F;Pokemon card boosters that you can buy from physical shops?&lt;p&gt;As it&amp;#x27;s written in the article, problems arise for a &lt;i&gt;minority&lt;/i&gt; 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&amp;#x27;t video games loot boxes. Yes, some of them spend thousands, but what if they are millionaires&amp;#x27;s kids? They play by different rules.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, gambling in videos game means your kids will experience the risk of gambling sooner, and if you watch your kid and educate them about it, they can experience it in a safer environment than when they are adults.&lt;p&gt;To me, banning virtual loot boxes is extreme and doesynt solve the actual problem (education programs are misaligned, lack of mental healthcare programs, etc). Addiction might reveal a problem, but it&amp;#x27;s not necessary the root cause.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PeterStuer</author><text>Yeah ... except the whole video game gambling is fine-tuned and relentless in its pursuit to prey upon the vulnerabilities and blind-sights of the very exploitable. It is an addiction machine fishing for kids to enthrall.&lt;p&gt;By all means educate your kids, but also make sure to protect them at their most vulnerable against an &amp;#x27;opponent&amp;#x27; in a very uneven playing field.&lt;p&gt;As for your comparison to trading card game boosters: sure, there are some dimensions of the experience that are similar. Varying rarity and desirability of items contained in a purchased container that does not reveal its content until after purchase. There are also things that are vastly different. There are things like the virtualization of the transaction (spending online  virtual coins, even though you purchased them with real money has been proven to be psychologically very different from a cash transaction), the sensory stimuli that are build into the opening rituals (real card packs at most can optimize the tearing experience and the smell of the freshly opened pack, which they do btw) which makes it a very different matter.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes there are real grey zones when it comes to the balance of overprotectiveness vs predation. It is not because the delineation can&amp;#x27;t be made extremely precise that we can&amp;#x27;t identify that some things are clearly outside of the acceptable middle.&lt;p&gt;IMHO lootboxes do not fall into this grey area, and are clearly a predatory mechanism that the most vulnerable should be prevented from having to be in a perpetual armsrace against.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ban kids from loot box gambling in games</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49661870</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>antpls</author><text>If we ban loot boxes in video games, why dont we ban Magic&amp;#x2F;Pokemon card boosters that you can buy from physical shops?&lt;p&gt;As it&amp;#x27;s written in the article, problems arise for a &lt;i&gt;minority&lt;/i&gt; 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&amp;#x27;t video games loot boxes. Yes, some of them spend thousands, but what if they are millionaires&amp;#x27;s kids? They play by different rules.&lt;p&gt;In my opinion, gambling in videos game means your kids will experience the risk of gambling sooner, and if you watch your kid and educate them about it, they can experience it in a safer environment than when they are adults.&lt;p&gt;To me, banning virtual loot boxes is extreme and doesynt solve the actual problem (education programs are misaligned, lack of mental healthcare programs, etc). Addiction might reveal a problem, but it&amp;#x27;s not necessary the root cause.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JauntyHatAngle</author><text>Because magic the gathering cards are an actual item tradeable for actual money to other players and resellers. It&amp;#x27;s still questionable in many ways, sure.&lt;p&gt;But many of these virtual items are closed economies with the supply entirely owned by the producer of the game. These have no intrinsic value outside of this closed system and there is no ability to exchange them for real money.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not saying booster packs are necessarily morally correct either, but want to highlight that there is a qualitative difference between them and most loot box economies.</text></comment>