<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>scandinavegan</author><text>No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you&amp;#x27;re right there guiding him.&lt;p&gt;I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he&amp;#x27;s wasting it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn&amp;#x27;t get the things he want, but that&amp;#x27;s a learning experience. It&amp;#x27;s worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, because in his eyes it makes it all worth it.&lt;p&gt;I see the money I give him as teaching opportunities. Kids will get in touch with these mechanics as they grow up, and now you have the chance to talk to him about it. Discuss it over and over, it&amp;#x27;s not a one-time thing, and you&amp;#x27;ve made no permanent damage. Let him know you think it&amp;#x27;s not worth it, but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t put a permanent ban on it, as it may make it even more appealing. If he wants other (real-life) stuff later, remind him that he already spent his money on loot boxes and I think they will lose their appeal a bit.</text></item><item><author>ian0</author><text>Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc.&lt;p&gt;He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn&amp;#x27;t actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we had to buy 10 boxes with random contents that could potentially contain a skin similar to the one he wanted.&lt;p&gt;Watching his excitement opening up the boxes and his eventual disappointment at not receiving the one he wanted - plus subsequent enthusiasm to buy more coins courtesy of some lesser items granted, I realised Id made a horrible mistake. Id basically introduced a virtual pub gambling machine to a young kid. This sort of stuff is horrible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragontamer</author><text>Its called a skinnerbox: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Operant_conditioning_chamber&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Operant_conditioning_chamber&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fully grown ADULTS fall prey to skinnerboxes (aka: Slot Machines) all the time. Its basic human psychology (heck: the skinnerbox is effective on virtually all Birds and Mammals). Its extremely fundamental to the function of the modern biological brain.&lt;p&gt;Its literally a &amp;quot;brain hack&amp;quot;. This isn&amp;#x27;t some &amp;quot;willpower away&amp;quot; sort of training. This is literally how your brain, and your children&amp;#x27;s brain works. As well as how your dog&amp;#x27;s brain, and the bird&amp;#x27;s brains and the cats brains, and deer brains.&lt;p&gt;The only winning move is to not play. Its literally hopeless if you get sucked into a skinner box. You can&amp;#x27;t beat the biological functions of what your brain is designed to do.&lt;p&gt;--------&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think there&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;long term damage&amp;quot; to be suffered here. Human brains, just like the brains of any mammal (or bird), are prone to operant conditioning. If you RANDOMLY give a reward when a subject (be it human, mammal, or bird) pushes a button, the subject will continue to push the button over and over again.&lt;p&gt;Its just biology.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: And random-rewards are far stronger than consistent rewards. If a reward is consistent, then when it &amp;quot;stops&amp;quot;, the subject believes that the pattern is over. But if the reward was Random, then the subject will continue pushing the button even long after the pattern has stopped or been modified.</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>scandinavegan</author><text>No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you&amp;#x27;re right there guiding him.&lt;p&gt;I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he&amp;#x27;s wasting it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn&amp;#x27;t get the things he want, but that&amp;#x27;s a learning experience. It&amp;#x27;s worse when he once in a while gets a cool skin, because in his eyes it makes it all worth it.&lt;p&gt;I see the money I give him as teaching opportunities. Kids will get in touch with these mechanics as they grow up, and now you have the chance to talk to him about it. Discuss it over and over, it&amp;#x27;s not a one-time thing, and you&amp;#x27;ve made no permanent damage. Let him know you think it&amp;#x27;s not worth it, but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t put a permanent ban on it, as it may make it even more appealing. If he wants other (real-life) stuff later, remind him that he already spent his money on loot boxes and I think they will lose their appeal a bit.</text></item><item><author>ian0</author><text>Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character outfits (skins) etc.&lt;p&gt;He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn&amp;#x27;t actually buy the skin he wanted, instead we had to buy 10 boxes with random contents that could potentially contain a skin similar to the one he wanted.&lt;p&gt;Watching his excitement opening up the boxes and his eventual disappointment at not receiving the one he wanted - plus subsequent enthusiasm to buy more coins courtesy of some lesser items granted, I realised Id made a horrible mistake. Id basically introduced a virtual pub gambling machine to a young kid. This sort of stuff is horrible.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbms</author><text>There is permanent damage if you rewire your kids brain chemistry to get addicted to the near-miss of getting something good. Logical explanations don&amp;#x27;t undo that.&lt;p&gt;I understand from a Louis Theroux documentary on gambling addicts that it is the feeling of the near miss that is actually addictive and not the feeling of the win. Gambling addicts are used to winning and so they don&amp;#x27;t get a buzz from that.</text></comment>