News Dr. Zendle: There's a clear connection between loot boxes and problem gambling, must not be trivialized. (PCGamer)

[Crayon]

PC Gamer article

"This is so important. It's not something we should trivialize or laugh at or compare to baseball cards. This is life or death."

Zendle has authored multiple reports on loot boxes and gambling, and is unambiguous in his findings. In the 2018 article "Videogame loot boxes are linked to problem gambling: Results of a large-scale survey," for instance, he concluded, "This research provides empirical evidence of a relationship between loot box use and problem gambling. The relationship seen here was neither small, nor trivial. It was stronger than previously observed relationships between problem gambling and factors like alcohol abuse, drug use, and depression."

 

[lashman]

 

[fsdood]

I've skimmed through the study, and it's good that their methods are weeding out people who were not serious about the study and they will find places other then reddit to recruit for future studies, but so far it's promising. Hopefully this will drive the point that lootboxes are harmful and there's no defense for it unless you're a corporate bootlicker

 

[Phoenix RISING]

I had to tell my son that I refuse to let him spend even his own money on lootboxes in Overwatch.

This weekend I told my other, younger, crying son, that I would not pay for a subscription service for Minecraft.

I am not raising children in my household to give MORE money to these companies for goods already rendered. "GAAS" my butt.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

My problems with the research done by these authors continue to be the same issues that each report they generate does not address;

1. They are data scientists performing correlative data analysis, to form causal psychological conclusions
2. Their sample group is self selected, and to offset this they automatically junk any data they don't believe fits their hypothesis
3. Their sample group is pseudo-anonymous via reddit; there are no further screening procedures

No matter where you stand on the issue, these are pretty serious flaws in their methodology

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

They mention all that and more in their "Further Work" section as i would expect for an initial first set of experiments and that allows me to take them more seriously. I'd like to see if they can get funding to improve and expand upon their ideas and it won't be long before other researchers get involved and the body of work improves.

 

[Crayon]

I had to tell my son that I refuse to let him spend even his own money on lootboxes in Overwatch.

This weekend I told my other, younger, crying son, that I would not pay for a subscription service for Minecraft.

I am not raising children in my household to give MORE money to these companies for goods already rendered. "GAAS" my butt.

Thank god for you.