It is somewhere down the line that gaming ceased being about playing and became about spending. You used to go out and buy a game, play a game and that was it. But today, you spend money on the game and again spend money on skins, upgrades, characters and most dangerous, chance. Here is the age of microtransactions, and opening a loot box is no longer a game, it is a pull of a slot machine. Off the record, this is not additional content. It is gambling but in bright colours features through games.
The best example would be games like FIFA Ultimate Team and Genshin Impact are based on the principle of randomized rewards, in which the player spends their own money to receive an opportunity to obtain some new item or character. Loot boxes have structural similarity to gambling mechanisms, as shown by the research of the UK Gambling Commission, especially in terms of relying on a probabilistic reward system and psychological reinforcement. Not only that, another study in Nature Human Behaviour not only found a direct correlation between loot box expenditure and problem gambling behaviours but also identified a direct relationship between them.
However, the actual problem and issue we are about to talk about is as follows: this is not like casinos, where you are not checked on age when playing games. These systems are exposed to teens and younger players on a daily basis. There are no waving red flags, no gambling responsibly slogans. Simply colourful cartoons, short-lived promotion, and that unresistible sentence: Trying once again. It is temptation in its purest. Yet, we’ve normalised it.
What is worse, micro-transactions cover actual expenditure. Purchasing 1000 in-game coins does not make it feel like spending RM30, yet that is the case. That alienation is premeditated. It reduces the barrier of psychology and the players thus spend more without even knowing how much they have lost. This is justified by the industry calling it optional. However, when advancement, competition or fun is behind the paywalls, is it an option?
Gaming was used as a reward of time, effort and skill. It now rewards the one who is ready to pay better. There is no question of whether or not microtransactions are harmless.The question is here today why are we allowing games to educate an entire generation that winning is all about both luck and money?
References and Links
UK Gambling Commission : https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk
Nature Human Behaviour : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0360-1
Youtube Video Link: https://youtu.be/x23P1H-QWkM
Yinan Zhou 
Xinyue HOU