But the industry association describes it as simply "buying into the game" to enhance the experience.
"I have had paediatricians refer children to me who have been soiling themselves … the child will come to my office, I'll ask them, 'What are you doing when you are soiling yourself?' They'll tell me they are playing a video game and they can't stop."For the past five years he's been hooked on Pokémon GO, a mobile game that's made a reported $US4 billion.It uses a reward system.
"I think the ultimate kill I made with my original guild was a giant octopus and we spent months killing the giant squid, but the sense of achievement when we finally killed it, we didn't recruit any semi-pro players to help us kill it, we did it ourselves," she said. "I actually had to step out of the raiding team with the guild for a while there because my wrists were so bad.""I had to write all the lists down so that I was organised and I could give it 24 hours straight. I bought energy drinks, dinners were made and prepped," she said."Organising schedules around the game … pretty safe to say that either you are overly, fiercely competitive, which I'm not, or you're addicted.
"They want players to experience comfort, to experience a sense of escape from the real world in these experiences, and normalise spending within that same setting.""Your personal life starts to exist in the game. You're meeting friends in-game, you're making friends in-game," Rob told Four Corners. "A disproportionate amount of the revenue that loot boxes draw from comes from players that score highly in terms of problem gambling symptomology."The games industry defends loot boxes, saying they're no different to a Kinder Surprise.
"In loot boxes … you don't buy the game for the reward mechanism but the reward mechanism is there. You purchase access to this … and you get a random outcome, that might be very valuable or not at all valuable.”In 2018, Senator Steele-John led a parliamentary inquiry into the potential harm caused by loot boxes.
Shimoda63 ..... sparklies
Canada banned micro transactions. We should too.
ban microtransactions. problem solved.
'Here's how Morrison keeps the media hooked with daily announcements'. 4Corners ScottyTheAnnouncer auspol