June 2016 Archives

Games, gambling, and kids

| No TrackBacks

This post was motivated by the following article: Counter-Strike skins gambling: Australian teens risking thousands through video game.

It raises an issue that I have been pondering for several years, without conclusion.

Background: Valve Corporation is the company that created CS:GO and Team Fortress 2. Valve also runs a platform called Steam which you can think of as being similar to Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store, but for PC games. Virtual items can also be traded within Steam, i.e. players can buy items from other players for dollar denominations.

Besides what this article reports, there's a more fundamental gambling related issue in CS:GO, and another Valve title, Team Fortress 2.

When you play these games you are randomly given "weapon cases" (CS:GO) and "crates" (TF2). These are virtual gift boxes that you need a key to open. The keys cost US$2.50.

Inside these boxes are a predefined list of possible items. These items have varying appeal to gamers which is what ultimately affects their price. Items can be resold both on Valve's Steam platform, and via 3rd party sites -- this is worth noting since without tradability the value of the unboxed items would be limited and the appeal of opening cases/crates would be significantly diminished.

Essentially the design of this system is no different to that of a lottery. You pay US$2.50 for each lottery ticket which grants you a chance to win any of a predefined* list of prizes.

*- There is one difference to regulated lotteries: the payout ratio is undefined. Probabilities of the prizes are not stated and have only been empirically estimated from community collated data (i.e. players report what they got, and how many boxes they opened).

My issue with the system is that players (read: children and teenagers) are regularly encouraged to participate in this lottery system. Players are frequently given cases/crates, acting as a constant reminder of the prizes that await them should they wish to spend US$2.50.

Furthermore, despite the article's mention of parents' credit cards, that is not actually a barrier to participation.

Steam gift cards are readily available for cash purchase in major retailers like Coles, Woolworths, JB Hi-Fi, EB Games, and service stations. For readers outside Australia, these are our major supermarkets, electronics and games retailers.

The question in my mind: if we don't allow kids to buy lottery tickets, why do we allow them to gamble online?

This is no different to a kid walking into a newsagent and asking for an Instant Scratch-It. Actually, it's even worse. It's like a kid going into a newsagent and having the proprietor say "hey kiddo, wanna win $25k?".

Now to argue against myself because, on further consideration, resolution is not straightforward.

As a kid I bought basketball cards. Other kids bought footy cards.

If you think about it, those are no different to the virtual cases/crates of CS:GO and TF2 -- you paid a few bucks in the hope that the pack you opened would contain that rare card of your favourite player, or maybe some other rare card that you could trade.

And it's not just sports cards -- card games like Magic: The Gathering are built on the same system.

That makes it really tricky to draw the line.

I do believe there is value in kids learning to trade, and learning within a context that they care about. People learn best when they practice in a context that they enjoy.

Perhaps then the goal should be to keep as much of those positive aspects whilst avoiding mechanisms that are known to be addictive, especially for games aimed at kids, or that we know kids will be drawn to.

In the specific case of CS:GO and TF2, I'd argue that their case/crate systems serve no purpose except to hook players into an addiction based system that has no core gameplay purpose (the items in CS:GO and TF2 are all cosmetic or stat-tracking, i.e. you killed X with this gun).

I understand why Valve chose this model as it is extremely profitable for them. But surely there is some responsibility then to limit participation by minors.

At this stage my thinking is not for regulation, primarily because it's unclear to me how we could clearly define what's acceptable and what's not.

However, it is interesting to note that for CS:GO neither the Australian classification (MA 15+) nor the ESRB (M 17+) mention anything about gambling.



Recent Comments

  • Adam: Hey mate, I`m using http://www.sunvpn.com/ to watch HULU from Perth. read more
  • goosmurf: hey rifleman! :) Cheers everyone for the updates, great to read more
  • Ben B: Wow, blast from the past. Came across this post whilst read more
  • Eris: I love you! read more
  • aki: I don't agree that Facebook is an example where simplicity read more
  • web designer: A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a read more
  • Dentall Recall Systems: I think that when Larry Page talks about start up read more
  • Paul Zagoridis: While I agree with you that slicing and dicing a read more
  • Mobile Marketer: Its strange how QR codes have never really 'taken off' read more
  • Logo Design: We are also working on expanding the key areas for read more

About this Archive

This page is an archive of entries from June 2016 listed from newest to oldest.

January 2015 is the previous archive.

May 2018 is the next archive.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.