adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Tech

How a Popular Video Game Trait Can Trigger Gambling Problems

Published

 on

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

A team of researchers from Newcastle University and Loughborough University in the United Kingdom had pressing questions about a feature of many popular video games. More and more, digital games seemed to be incorporating something called “loot boxes”—a surprise bag of random in-game goodies players could acquire in exchange for real-world money. Take the popular “FIFA” video game franchise, for instance, which has introduced loot boxes in the form of player packs. Gamers can purchase packs and collect famous soccer stars to play on their team. In addition to an aesthetic benefit, packs have a small chance of containing “rare” or “legendary” players who can strengthen one’s team in-game. Loot boxes don’t meet the legal definition of gambling, but they often take pages out of the same book.

Selling loot boxes in popular video games, the U.K. researchers wrote in a 2022 report, is “problematic,” in no small part because these games are regularly played by children and young people. Gambling, meanwhile, is restricted to adults above 18. In their study of 42 English families with children between the ages of 5 and 17, the researchers investigated how young people engaged with these paid reward systems—and their findings were striking and concerning.

One young person they interviewed routinely spent up to seven hours each day playing a popular mobile card game. He watched YouTubers who played the game and aspired to compete with them—but to do that, he needed better cards. The game sold him loot boxes in the form of packs of random cards that he purchased with real money. Since buying a pack didn’t guarantee that he’d get the rare cards he wanted, he kept purchasing packs, again and again. Over the course of a month, he had spent nearly $550 on the game.

 

300x250x1

“As soon as I was getting better players, I wanted to get better and better and better and better, like, I couldn’t stop,” the anonymous young person told the researchers.

“In my head I was like ‘stop,’” another young person told the researchers. “My guts were saying ‘stop’. Everything was saying ‘stop’, but my brain wasn’t. My brain was like ‘keep opening [loot boxes]’. It was hard. It was like when you’re addicted to something.”

Loot boxes have existed in video games for years. A Chinese game called Zhengtu Online, released in 2007 for PC, has been cited as the first modern online version of this element. The simplest explanation for their growing prevalence—by some estimates, they are now present in a majority of popular digital games— is that they make loads of money for gaming companies by encouraging players to make continuous microtransactions. These small payments to buy loot boxes add up: Market research firm Juniper Research estimates that loot boxes will generate video games over $20 billion in revenue by 2025.

But there may be a disturbing underbelly to this trend. High levels of loot box purchasing have been linked to signs of problem gambling, with new research suggesting the former might predict the latter in young players. Meanwhile, a new study finds that industry self-regulation (the main form of regulation in the U.S. and Europe) is significantly lacking. Taken together, experts interviewed by The Daily Beast say there’s cause for concern that parents may not be fully aware of the risks of loot boxes on their children and teens.

Your (Kid’s) Brain on Loot Boxes

Luke Clark, the director of the Centre for Gambling Research at The University of British Columbia, had been studying gambling for over a decade when his graduate students brought a new topic to his attention. They had been keeping tabs on “Star Wars: Battlefront II,” a much-anticipated 2017 video game that stirred up controversy in beta testing because of purchasable loot boxes that gave players an advantage through items, crafting parts, and in-game currency. Loot boxes only had a small chance of giving players the strongest items and parts, though, leading many to spend upwards of $100 to open the boxes again and again, leading players and officials alike to compare the game mechanic to gambling. “This game is a Star-Wars-themed online casino, designed to lure kids into spending money. It’s a trap,” Hawaiian Democratic State Rep. Chris Lee said at the time.

The apparent similarities between loot box purchasing and traditional gambling led Clark and graduate student Gabriel Brooks to conduct one of the first studies linking loot box usage to problem gambling. Since then, the association between the two has been pretty easy to establish in other games as well, Clark told The Daily Beast.

But there’s still an important distinction between determining an association between the two behaviors and figuring out if loot box engagement causes a person to develop problem gambling behaviors. Correlation, Clark emphasized, does not equal causation. A 2022 report from the U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport underscored this point between loot boxes and gambling harms, concluding there was evidence for an association but not a cause-and-effect relationship.

Currently, this leaves room for two theories, Clark said. The first is “migration”—that underage and adult video gamers exposed to gambling-like loot boxes might be more likely to move onto conventional gambling. The other theory is that the association is due to a case of reverse causality—experienced gamblers are attracted to video games with loot boxes.

Recent research is beginning to offer answers to these quandaries. Clark and Brooks published a study in the April issue of Computers in Human Behavior that tracked young gamblers’ and non-gamblers’ engagement with loot boxes and conventional gambling over the course of six months. They found that the more a non-gambler spent on loot boxes, the higher their odds of becoming a gambler after six months—providing evidence for the migration hypothesis.

Crucially, however, the participants in the study were not minors—they were on average 22 years old, since they were asked to report gambling behaviors that would not have been legal for minors in the regions studied (the U.S., U.K., and Canada). Future studies should try to replicate this finding in a younger age group to cement a migration pathway, Clark added.

When ‘Mortal Kombat’ Made America Lose Its Mind

Still, the results highlight why, from a brain development perspective, there are reasons to be concerned about young people in particular. Adolescent brains lack a fully developed logic center to regulate decisions about risk-taking. In other words, the gas pedal develops before the brakes. Gambling in minors can lead to immediate financial and familial problems and are associated with other risky behaviors including drug use and truancy.

Video game publishers have defended the use of loot boxes using a variety of arguments. “Battlefront II” publisher Electronic Arts justified the game’s loot boxes in a Reddit comment as a way to provide players with “a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.” Redditors clearly felt otherwise, as that post holds the record for the single-most downvoted comment on the platform.

Another defense of loot boxes likens them to trading cards and Kinder Eggs, not conventional gambling. But Natalie Coyle, an independent psychology and video games researcher based in the U.K., told The Daily Beast that the research doesn’t support these comparisons.

Studies have found that the process of purchasing trading cards and novelty eggs contain several key differences from that of buying loot boxes—most importantly, a built-in waiting period. Buying a real-world product requires you to drive to the store or wait for a delivery to arrive. Compare that to the immediate dopamine hit felt from purchasing a loot box in a game, Coyle said—“It’s really not the same thing.” And in fact, one 2021 study found that spending money on collectible trading cards was not linked to problem gambling in the same way that loot box spending was.

On the other hand, techniques programmed into the opening of some loot box, like portraying “near misses” and using sounds to simulate “wins,” are more akin to gambling, the 2022 U.K. report authors wrote.

Although calls for the regulation of loot boxes often come from concerns about protecting children, Coyle stressed that people of all ages and walks of life play video games. Children and adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to risks associated with loot boxes and gambling, but legal adults can be susceptible, too.

“When people go to college and get their own finances, there are horror stories of it being spent on video games,” she said. “While the psychology of [buying loot boxes] might not change, sometimes the difference between being 18 and up is having access to money.”

Here’s What the Metaverse Apocalypse Will Look Like

Regulation Dysfunction

Researchers, parents, and regulators agree that the status quo of loot boxes in video games needs to change. And save for a few examples of federal regulation, most governments have relied on industry self-regulation from the same agencies that provide age-rating recommendations, Leon Xiao, a loot box regulation researcher at the IT University of Copenhagen, told The Daily Beast.

Infamous examples of industry self-regulation gone wrong—alcohol, tobacco, and fossil fuel, to name a few—should tell us that a laissez-faire approach to the video game industry is unlikely to succeed, though it seems few regulators have learned those lessons, Xiao said.

Xiao is the author of a study published on March 29 in Royal Society Open Science finding that, unfortunately, self-regulation isn’t going very well. In the U.S., the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is the self-regulatory agency in charge of rating video games and alerting parents to games that contain loot boxes; in Europe, it’s Pan-European Game Information (PEGI). ESRB and PEGI labels for games containing loot boxes both read “In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items).” But when Xiao looked at 66 games rated by both ESRB and PEGI, he found that more than 60 percent of them had been labeled by one agency but not the other—even though each agency was meant to alert consumers to the exact same thing.

When Xiao shared his findings with each board, they provided various explanations: ESRB did not retroactively label games that had been released prior to the launch of the loot box label, while some PEGI-labeled games did not contain loot boxes in Europe only. Still, the two agencies corrected several of their labels for mislabeled games.

Xiao also took a look at 100 popular games found on the Google Play Store that were known to contain loot boxes. When publishers upload a game to this store, they must fill out a questionnaire meant to help assign an age rating and loot box disclosure. Based on these games’ questionnaires, though, only 29 percent were labeled as containing loot boxes.

These games have since been properly labeled since Xiao shared his data, but he stressed that his findings are only the tip of the iceberg.

“The problem is, of course, that I only looked at about 100 games,” he said. “We got them labeled, but I will say there are tens of thousands of games containing loot boxes that are still not labeled on the Google Play Store.”

Even with proper disclosure, there’s some question of how well parents understand loot box warnings. A February study from researchers in Australia and New Zealand presented results from three experiments that found that “consumers do not appear to understand the ESRB/PEGI loot box warning.”

In the absence of better or more intuitive labeling, researchers like Xiao have called for “ethical loot box design” that would take more than industry self-regulation. In a 2019 paper, he and his co-author wrote that neither allowing industries to continue to self-regulate nor passing draconian bans would result in positive outcomes. Rather, they argued, “regulatory nudging” by offering video game companies tax and grant incentives could encourage them to lay off loot boxes or implement them more responsibly.

Many of the proposed changes in ethical loot box design are simple and intuitive, Coyle said: limiting low-value, “junk” items in loot boxes, capping purchases at a daily or monthly ceiling, and doing away with “pity” loot boxes that reward gamers who spend aggressively are all common-sense proposals that would enhance gameplay and start to mitigate the negative outcomes of loot box engagement.

If nothing else, this field of research should cause gamers and their families to take a skeptical look at loot boxes. More often than not, Coyle said, it’s not a fair shake for the consumer.

“The house always wins, and that’s especially true when it comes to video game publishers,” she said.

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

Ask Andy: How can you tell whether a startup is a good place to work? When is it safe to disclose a mental-health challenge to coworkers? – Yahoo Canada Finance

Published

 on


Welcome to the inaugural edition of Ask Andy. In this biweekly column, Andy Dunn—the founding CEO of Bonobos and Pie—offers advice on leading teams, building things, and surviving the startup life. Got a question for Andy? Ask it here.

***

As a software developer who would like to work for a startup, what should I look for in a company so that I know it’s legit? If I am putting a lot of work into a product, I want to know that at minimum it’s for a legitimate company and founder—not just another person with an overdone app idea that knows nothing about the tech world. Sarah C.

300x250x1

If you’re learning the startup game, the best bet here is to go later-stage. Focus on a pre-IPO company that is growing quickly, has raised money from blue-chip investors, and is getting positive buzz in the market that it will go public within the next two years.

ADVERTISEMENT

Then, don’t believe any of it.

Network your way into three of the company’s team members on LinkedIn or through your network. Have three virtual or IRL coffees. Have them tell you about the culture: If they’re learning; if the company’s really growing; and most importantly, whether or not they respect and, ideally, admire the leadership.

Keep looking until you find this vetted opportunity.

That’s a systematic, rational approach. But that’s not the only way to go. You could throw it all out the window.

Find a company where you believe in the mission. One where you fall in love with the product or service. You might already be a high LTV customer or a power user. Check your credit card statement and your app home screen to source ideas. Your passion for the mission will make it work for you for some time, even if the company doesn’t work in the long run.

However you get there, once you’re inside for a year or two, you’ll be learning.

You may have to switch horses. That’s okay.

When you do, you’ll know more people, you’ll have more insight, and the path on what to pick next will be clearer. Heck, you might even notice an inflection point and meet a cofounder that leads to you starting a company yourself.

It’s like dating.

You probably won’t marry your first love—but you might. If you don’t, your judgment will iteratively improve. And the good news is unlike a marriage, you can change out your partner every few years. (What I’ve found, though, is that the most successful people professionally, and those who generate the most wealth, have more like 5- to 10-year runs.)

Trust your intuition. Follow your heart on the mission or product. Then, don’t trust yourself.  Study the market. Use the product.  And do at least three off-list references outside of who you interview with. Read every single Glassdoor entry.

And then jump!

You’ll be fine.

Do you think you could have shared your mental health conditions publicly BEFORE you were professionally successful, and still have been successful? Or was the fact that you had already achieved professional success what allowed you to be open? Zack

No, I don’t think I could have shared before we succeeded. I wouldn’t have had the courage to, and I feared it might be career-limiting.

Then again, it was almost seven years ago that I had my I-can’t-deny-this-any-longer moment with my Bonobos colleagues and investors. As of today, I think it’s becoming more possible to be candid about mental health. I hope we can move to a world where I could have been more open, sooner, at least selectively with my leadership team and board.

Some entrepreneurs ask me when to tell their VCs about the mental-health challenge or mental-health diagnosis they wrestle with. I always say the same thing: at a breakfast meeting, four months after you’ve closed the round and hit your numbers. Nobody cares about your neurodivergence if you’re performing—and most VCs actually know enough to know that most founders have more going on than meets the eye.

With your team, I think it’s doable, even now. Perhaps especially now. The truth is, they know. They know you deal with stuff because they’re around you. And the vulnerability you share in disclosing will multiply their respect for you. More importantly, it’ll give those team members the space to reciprocally share their stuff with their colleagues, and potentially you as well, and bring their full selves to work.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Andy Dunn is the founding CEO of Bonobos and Pie and the author of Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

Take-Two Buys Gearbox And Its New ‘Borderlands’ Game From Embracer – Forbes

Published

 on


If you’re a game developer owned by Embracer Group at this point, you are nervous about layoffs, shutdowns or game cancellations after the last few years. But now, there is a somewhat happy ending for one of them, Gearbox.

It’s just been announced that Take-Two, which owns GTA developer Rockstar, will purchase Gearbox for $460 million. This also includes the properties Gearbox owns, the Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands franchises, Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem. The report says Gearbox has six games in development, five sequels, including a new Borderlands game, the not-announced-but-definitely-happening Borderlands 4. Here’s Strauss Zelnick:

“Our acquisition of Gearbox is an exciting moment for Take-Two and will strengthen our industry-leading creative talent and portfolio of owned intellectual property, including the iconic Borderlands franchise,” said Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two. “This combination enhances the financial profile of our existing projects with Gearbox and unlocks the opportunity for us to drive increased long-term growth by leveraging the full resources of Take-Two across all of Gearbox’s exciting initiatives.”

300x250x1

Gearbox has been working with 2K and Take-Two for decades, so it was a logical place for them to land. This is, of course, not a great look for Embracer, who only purchased Gearbox three years ago. The price tag back then was “worth up to $1.3 billion” but there were a lot of strings attached to that where it’s not necessarily the case that selling for $$460 million netted them a ~$900 million loss.

As for what this means for gamers, it would seem something like the Borderlands franchise is now on more stable ground, as it was hard to believe any project at Embracer is fully safe these days. Last year, Embracer quietly cancelled 29 different unannounced games and shut down seven studios in a six month period including Volition and Free Radical Design. That came with around 1,400 layoffs. More recently, Embracer laid off 97 people at Eidos in Janaury and cancelled a Deus Ex game.

Sufficed to say, those at Gearbox probably feel pretty good about this. And as for Take-Two, Borderlands is still a valuable IP, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland was a surprise hit. There’s a new Homeworld game coming as well. In an era for multi-billion dollar acquisition, Gearbox for $460 million doesn’t seem that bad. That’s probably a third of what GTA 6 will sell on day one next year.

!function(n) if(!window.cnxps) window.cnxps=,window.cnxps.cmd=[]; var t=n.createElement(‘iframe’); t.display=’none’,t.onload=function() var n=t.contentWindow.document,c=n.createElement(‘script’); c.src=’//cd.connatix.com/connatix.playspace.js’,c.setAttribute(‘defer’,’1′),c.setAttribute(‘type’,’text/javascript’),n.body.appendChild(c) ,n.head.appendChild(t) (document);
(function() function createUniqueId() return ‘xxxxxxxx-xxxx-4xxx-yxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx’.replace(/[xy]/g, function(c) 0x8); return v.toString(16); ); const randId = createUniqueId(); document.getElementsByClassName(‘fbs-cnx’)[0].setAttribute(‘id’, randId); document.getElementById(randId).removeAttribute(‘class’); (new Image()).src = ‘https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=d1021730-df4b-4127-8be2-fb6a0e4e96e4’; cnxps.cmd.push(function () cnxps( playerId: ‘d1021730-df4b-4127-8be2-fb6a0e4e96e4’).render(randId); ); )();

Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Tech

What's Brewing in the iPhone 16 Rumor Mill? AI, Action Buttons and More – CNET

Published

 on


As the iPhone 15 settles into the market, the tech community is buzzing with anticipation for Apple’s next-generation handset, which is expected to be named “iPhone 16.” 

We’ve heard whispers about the iPhone 16’s features, which are said to span from a new power-efficient display to larger screens, better zoom lenses, an action button and, perhaps not surprisingly, a suite of new gen-AI powered features.

Read more: Best iPhone of 2024

300x250x1

However, the iPhone 16 is still presumably six months away and nothing will be confirmed until Apple’s iPhone event in the fall. Still, these rumors could give us an idea of what to expect from the next iPhone.

Here are the most credible rumors for the iPhone 16.

Will the iPhone 16 fold?

Probably not. The newest rumors suggest Apple has been working on iPhone Flip models in two different sizes, though there have been difficulties in making the devices to Apple’s standards. The company may also be working on a folding tablet with a screen around the size of an iPad Mini. Even though virtually every major phone-maker — from Google to Oppo to OnePlus and Samsung — have launched their own bendable handsets, Apple has been characteristically quiet about whether there will ever be an iPhone Flip or an iPhone Fold.

Prior rumors said Apple may not launch its own flexible screen device until 2025. Samsung hasn’t let phone fans forget it — by releasing an app that will let Apple phone owners experience a Z Fold-esque experience by placing two iPhones side-by-side.

iPhone 16 Pro models to get bigger screens?

Apple has maintained the two screen sizes for iPhone Pro models since 2020 when it launched the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. However, that’s rumored to change with the iPhone 16 Pro models, which might get bigger screens.

Display analyst Ross Young suggested earlier this year that the iPhone 16 Pro models will have larger screens, putting the sizes at 6.3 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. That rumor was later corroborated by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said the iPhone 16 Pro models could grow by “a couple tenths of an inch diagonally.”

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models are believed to be sticking with the current 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes. If the size increase is accurate, it would be yet another move from Apple to distinguish its Pro iPhone models from its regular ones.

iPhone 15 screen sizes

  • iPhone 15: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 15 Pro Max: 6.7 inches.

Rumored iPhone 16 screen sizes

  • iPhone 16: 6.1 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Plus: 6.7 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro: 6.3 inches.
  • iPhone 16 Pro Max: 6.9 inches.

iPhone 16 gets more AI tricks

One of the most salient selling points of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series and Google’s Pixel 8 lineup were each of their souped-up AI tips and tricks, and it wouldn’t be a major shock if Apple went in the same direction. Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone on the record this year confirming Apple sees “a huge opportunity for Apple with gen AI and AI.”

According to Gurman’s Power On newsletter, iOS 18 will feature generative AI technology that “should improve how both Siri and the Messages app can field questions and auto-complete sentences.”

A September report from the Information says Apple plans to use large language models, a crucial part of generative AI, to make Siri smarter. The report said this feature is expected to be released with an iPhone software update next year. 

Read More: iPhone iOS 18: A Possible Big Leap In AI

iPhone 16 design: New action button?

In March, AppleInsider published a collection of photographs purportedly displaying 3D-printed dummy models of the rumored iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. The images revealed that the iPhone 16 may have a vertical camera stack as opposed to a diagonal one and an action button, similar the one on last year’s iPhone 15 Pro.

iPhone 16 gets more power-efficient display?

Another change that could make its way to iPhone 16 displays is greater power efficiency. Samsung Display is apparently developing a new material set, dubbed M14, specifically for Apple, according to a TheElec report, which says the new technology should arrive on iPhones launching next year. M14 will replace the blue fluorescent technology that’s used now with blue phosphorescence technology, creating an even more power-efficient screen than the current LTPO ones used on Pro models, the report says.

Andrew Lanxon/CNET

iPhone 16 gets better zoom?

Both the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max could both have 5x telephoto lenses next year. According to Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo, a tetraprism lens will make its way to both Pro models next year, as opposed to just the Pro Max model. Apple equipped the iPhone 15 Pro with a 12-megapixel 3x optical zoom, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a 12-megapixel 5x optical zoom camera, which is the equivalent of 120mm lens on a full-frame camera.

If this rumor is true, it could mark a breakthrough in design. When Apple launched the 15 Pro Max with its 5x telephoto lens, it cited the phone’s bigger body as to why the Pro Max had it, but the Pro didn’t.

iPhone 16 processors: A18 chip for all models?

In a break with the past two years, all four iPhone 16 models will apparently get a next-generation Apple chipset, which will all receive A18 branding. According to a MacRumors report citing Jeff Pu, an executive analyst for Haitong International Securities, all four models will have an A18 series chip with Pro iPhone models getting an A18 Bionic Pro and base models getting a regular A18.

The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus currently have an A16 Bionic, which debuted on the 2022 iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, while the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max run on the A17 Pro processor. Pu says the A18 chip will be manufactured with TSMC’s cutting-edge 3 nanometer process.

Read more: Apple iPhone SE 4 Rumors: iPhone 14 Design, Face ID and More



728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending