Addiction is a disease defined by compulsive use of a substance or a pattern of behavior that

one cannot stop, even if one acknowledges the severe consequences to one's own life. One of
the most common forms of addiction is compulsive drug use, eating disorders, money spending,
and gambling. And neither is less destructive than the other. Society's misconception regarding
addiction may heighten the issue, but there are plenty of businesses in the industry that do
know addiction all too well and how to use it to make a profit. One particular industry that is
really good at using addictive behavior is the gaming industry.
In 2017, Activision Blizzard, which developed insanely popular games like Candy Crush
and the Call of Duty series, generated $4 billion from in-game transactions, which was more
than half of the total revenue. And more recently, in 2019, everybody's favorite gaming
company, EA has reported earnings of $1 billion as well from microtransactions. A lot of these
microtransaction revenues come from an offshoot called loot boxes. The problem isn't so much
what's being sold, but the psychological tricks that are used to hook people to spend their hard-
earned money thru manipulation. They would use gratifying jingles and animation to appeal to
compulsive shoppers to encourage compulsive spending. You can read up on the stories of
people going into debt through FIFA games. Or young kids putting their parents through debt
over video game transactions. Of course, most game companies will deny any unethical issues,
any psychological string-pulling used with these kinds of mechanics, or anything linked to
problem gambling just to pass their scummy ways off as normal. Another disturbing evidence
can be seen in a video showing a presentation by CEO Torulf Jernstrom titled Let's Go
Whaling!, which should give you a good idea about the contents. Through the process,
Jernstrom gloats over the messed up process of creating compulsive psychological triggers
when coming up with these pocket mining mechanics. Jernstrom categorizes four types of video
gamers and each one having its own monetization model. The gamer types are achievers,
socializers, killers, and explorers. Achievers are the type of gamers that enjoy progression in a
game, which Jernstrom proposes as a convenience-based monetization. And the reason why
convenience is highlighted in bold lettering is that convenience monetization makes the most
profit and can efficiently exploit players.
This is why we see so many mobile games, for example, games like Candy Crush, are
programmed to give people as few opportunities to progress through levels and various
obstacles as possible so they can sell you an extra life or a second chance to play again should
you lose.
Or they implement a mechanic that limits the time to progress in a game to sell you on a
premium package to get rid of the time limits, like the game Elder Scrolls Blades.
And the problem that we see here is that these scummy profit-making ideas hamper
progression in their games. It's purposely bad game design and exploitive.
The fact that they make billions of revenue shows how psychologically alluring these
things can be for players.
From there, Jernstrom points to the three stages of monetization: hook, habit, and
hobby.
It starts by tempting players to spend money with some form of a hook, like free
premium items to give potential spenders a free taste of the microtransaction and loot boxes.
This is done in hopes to break the player's resolve of spending money and making it okay to
make purchases here and there. Once the player enters the hobby stage, from this point, they
are strong-armed to spend reoccurring money on virtual items to sustain the player's progress,
like Clash of Clans.
Jernstrom then moves on to talk about the Gotchas monetization model, known as loot
boxes and was afraid to compare these to lotteries and the high people get out of them. He
even compares them to skinner boxes, which are experiments used on lab rats over
psychological conditioning based on stimulation. A rat is conditioned to repeat specific behavior
and is rewarded with a stimulant for executing the right action, any other behavior the subject is
shocked or punished in some form.
As for loot boxes, the reward is the high of obtaining a rare virtual item in these lottery-
like models. And these senses are heightened with the use of exciting animation and rousing
music effects that play once these loot boxes are opened. This is very much akin to how casino
slot machines are operated and trap people with these psychologically appealing tricks to hook
people into compulsively spending money.
And it shows that rating boards aren't efficient at monitoring or doing their jobs right.
Especially with some of these game titles advertised safely playable for all ages. The way the
game industry exploits these monetization mechanics is absolutely far from ethical, and with
ever-increasing evidence against microtransaction, it only proves that there needs to be a
regulation from the government.
Following backlash from gamers and journalists has prompted governments in countries
everywhere to look into the effects of these monetization mechanics and games. In 2018,
Belgium's gaming committee banned the sale of microtransactions in games sold within the
country. If companies do not comply, then the government will enact a 5-year prison sentence
and fine over 800,000 euros. Needless to say, there hasn't been an issue with microtransaction
since.
While many lobbyists in the United States have introduced laws regulating predatory
microtransactions, none so far has successfully passed. And I believe the reason for it is a lot of
casual people, politicians specifically, are just not that aware of the issues posed by
microtransaction or how they operate. With more studies coming out and people becoming
more vocal against these practices, we're starting to become more aware of the problems.
In 2019, Senator Josh Hawley announced a bill that would ban loot boxes and pay-to-
win models in "games played by minors", which means games designed for ages under 18.
While we find that adults deal with addictions, the bill primarily focuses on children because
Senator Hawley believes children are more prone to becoming addicted and might not
understand what those sensations are doing to them. The bill's regulation will be enforced by
the Federal Trade Commission. And that the FTC will have to draft a report for congress to look
over, which should be an analysis of the psychological effects microtransactions have on
children.
So it's finally happening, the gaming industry has gotten the attention of government
officials going after them. This happens to companies who unwaveringly believe that their
practices are not unethical, who purposely produce bad game designs to sell you on things that
do, or try to entice you into buying random generated virtual items like some kind of a lottery
ticket. And it's all because they won't take responsibility for their own actions and listen to
consumers who have expressed their frustration with how microtransaction has negatively
impacted their games and became harmful to those who genuinely suffer from addiction. Only
time will tell how this bill will pan out in the future.