Video games are the most popular form of entertainment today – according to the Polish Gamers Observatory study (which included a representative group of over 2,000 Polish gamers aged 9-15), 88 percent children play virtual games on their own or watch others' games.
Contrary to the stereotype, games are popular not only among boys.
Girls are equally eager to spend time on virtual gaming, but they do it more often on mobile devices, so hardly anyone notices it.
However, the video game market has undergone a revolution. Today, more and more games are designed so that the gameplay never ends. In addition, producers include mechanisms that require players to pay for success. It is also increasingly said that they are based on gambling mechanisms. At the beginning of 2023, an Austrian court ruled this way about the football game FIFA Ultimate Team.
To do better in the competition, players can buy surprise packages. They contain the players' avatars. As the producer promises, some of them contain really strong players. In which? We only find out after paying and opening the package.
– An element of randomness has been implemented, which means we follow the definition of gambling – said Michał Bobrowski from Webedia Polska, co-author of the Polish Gamers Observatory project. – These loot boxes have become a source of income for game producers – he noted.
– There would be nothing wrong with it if we knew what we could expect more or less for a certain amount. This would have to be regulated sooner or later, says the analyst.
Great Britain is trying to introduce such regulations. The UKIE (United Kingdom Interactive Entertainment) organization, which brings together representatives of the video game industry, and the government have prepared a set of 11 rules that determine the direction of development of loot box mechanics. This includes appropriate labeling of products and revealing the probability of winning prizes from crates.
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