video game sales soared by 24% from a year earlier to $11.2 billion in the third quarter, according to NPD Group.īy contrast, Americans spent about $22 billion on streaming movies and other video-on-demand content during the first nine months of the year, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. Newzoo is projecting the global video game market will be worth about $218 billion within just a couple of years. Market researcher Newzoo estimated in a report last month that total video game sales will surge nearly 20% this year to a record $175 billion - thanks to billions of gamers worldwide being stuck at home and spending hours every day in front of the screen to stave off boredom. Now, however, the stakes are significantly higher. I mean, do we seriously want to treat video games like playing slots in Las Vegas? Prior to the pandemic, I might have viewed this as little more than alarmism. “This framework of virtual valuation is key in properly regulating loot boxes as a form of gambling, which plays on the same psychological triggers as do slot machines.” “By examining the perceived value of loot-box rewards, it becomes clear that consumers are driven to gamble for virtual goods based on the value they bestow in the virtual world - irrespective of any real-world value,” the paper says. It incorporates the findings of dozens of previous game-related studies. “There’s data showing that when you expose children to gambling tendencies, they can develop gambling problems as adults,” he said.Įvans laid out his thinking in a 60-page paper titled “Pandora’s Loot Box,” published last month. That’s no different from winning money in the real world.”Įvans added that casino-like behavior is being fostered in kids. “The items you can win have a perceived value in the game world. “Loot boxes are a game of chance,” he said. “These items have no value outside the game, and each purchase provides an item to be used within a game,” he said by email.Įvans countered that this is disingenuous. Stanley Pierre-Louis, president of the Entertainment Software Assn., a video game industry trade group, insisted that comparing loot boxes to gambling “is misleading and wrong.” Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill last year that would ban sales of loot boxes to kids. For example, a recent survey found that almost two-thirds of British members of Parliament want greater regulation of loot boxes. It’s an issue other countries already are taking seriously. How much money? One recent forecast estimated gamers will be spending about $50 billion annually on loot boxes within the next two years.
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