Podcast Production

Do Micro-Transactions for Loot Boxes Promote Gambling for

Minors and Pose Possible Addiction Problems?
S. E. Doster (from Kotaku) states that, although they had purchasable cosmetic
upgrades since Black Ops II (2012), Call of Duty added micro-transactions in the
form of supply drops. They’ll give players advantages over others if they spend extra
money within the game, essentially making the game “play-to-win”. [1] [2] Now, it’s
possible to get really good items without spending any money by collecting salvage,
but it’s very luck-based and it’ll take a long time to get enough salvage to craft
anything useful so it encourages people to spend money instead.

Active Audiences have been stressing the issue within areas like the Activision
Community Forums, where other users discuss the “screwing” that
SAMKINGisGOLD (31 years old) received – spent close to $1000 on supply drops
and never got a single rare item. The 31-year-old is a perfect example of the third
division of the uses and gratification theory because he uses texts to discuss his
experiences with the product almost as they happened, hence social interaction. Just
to state, people won’t just complain about a product on forums as many products
have been lambasted in comment sections on YouTube and on live chats like
Twitch.

Unfortunately, the passive audience[s] of this game (despite its age rating) mainly
encompasses children and [unaware] parents! Therefore, Activision (in my opinion)
abuse the reception theory by intentionally encoding the ideology that they must
spend money in order to enjoy the game, which minors obviously decode as
planned… [3] The fault of passive audiences – Activision’s digital revenue in 2016
‘increased a massive 113% for a Q3 record of $1.3 billion’, and digital sales have
become 74% of Activision’s year-to-date total revenue (54% in 2015). Despite that
he believes it’s the world’s fault, Paul Tassi (who sheds light on these statistics)
agrees that ‘loot boxes are gambling, plain and simple, and there’s just no other way
to spin it.’

Also, when it comes to passive audiences, they tend to form specific thoughts about
a subject from e.g. just one article and they’ll then disregard any other form of media
that presents information that differs from their set, linear thoughts. For example,
they could read about EA for the first time and read their sincerest apologises for the
micro-transaction controversy (will be discussed later) and instantly oppose people’s
negative views on the company, usually with preferred or negotiated responses. This
is because they’ll then believe that the company’s apologies are sincere even though
they’ve used their predatory practices in other games like the FIFA series. This (to
me) plays into the second division of the uses and gratification theory called
information and education AKA surveillance, where some texts are consumed by
people because they want to know what’s going on in the world i.e. online news.
Famous YouTubers Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassel were
exposed as the owners of a CS:GO gambling website called CS:GO Lotto, which is
‘one of several sites that allow 13-plus-year-old fans to trade weapon skins for
actual, big money’. [4] Before taken them down, they constantly promoted their site
on their YouTube channels to convince people to join their site and essentially
gamble. Now, kids do watch these channels, and learning that they’re able to (in
their mind) legally risk gaining a large amount of actual money, joined the site and
did exactly what was intended due to listening to these YouTubers who they clearly
saw as opinion leaders – Two Step Flow Theory.

Anyway, it’s not just Activision as the biggest offender of these predatory acts, within
the video game industry, is EA because of modes such as FIFA Ultimate Team and
the recent Star Wars Battlefront II controversy! Due to the predatory nature of the
latter game, oppositional responses quickly risen as immense outrage spread so far
across the internet that this controversy even reached mainstream news and was a
hot topic in terms of pop culture. According to GameSpot, these responses led to EA
releasing a statement on Battlefront II's micro-transactions, confirming that they have
been temporarily removed, causing their stock price (along with the obvious
backlash) to drop 2.49% to $108.82 on launch day. [5] In fact, this predatory act
within video games was so disgusting that ‘Belgium's gambling authority launched an
investigation into Battlefront II over concerns that its loot crate system could
constitute gambling.’

Wall Street Journal reported that Disney CEO Robert Iger, at the time of this article
(16/01/18) hasn’t spoken with EA, but was described by the former ‘as being
"alarmed" by the anger online.’ Whereas, Disney’s head of consumer products and
interactive media Jimmy Pitaro did contact EA to let the publisher know about their
concerns. DICE boss Oskar Gabrielson, who is a part of EA, also responded: ‘We've
heard the concerns about potentially giving players unfair advantages, and we've
heard that this is overshadowing an otherwise great game. This was never our
intention. Sorry we didn't get this right." Although Disney may not have been
particularly involved, Oskar’s apology doesn’t come across as sincere at all and
cements in my mind that they believed that an active audience didn’t exist until now,
also cementing to me that their way of thinking is reminiscent to the hypodermic
needle theory.

^^ FIFA – Passive audiences, particularly children and [unaware] parents, are

convinced by e.g. ads that they should spend their money on Ultimate Team packs
as they expect to receive amazing players. However, they most likely won’t get these
players so minors will most likely constantly spend money on packs until they get
these players hence they develop an addiction to gambling.

Do Games Affect Your Behaviour & Do Violent Video Games Cause

You To Become More Violent In Real Life?
As reported by The Australian on 2/8/17, three members of an Islamist gang
(referred to as the GTA gang by outsiders) terrorised drivers and allegedly killed 17
people. They apparently used ‘caltrops or iron spikes to puncture’ random,
‘unsuspecting drivers’ tyres, forced them to pull over before shooting them dead’ and
‘stole their possessions after killing them alike the Grand Theft Auto series. [6] This
excerpt indicates to me that people are heavily affected and influenced by video
games as they literally copied what this “series” was doing and applied it practically
in the real-world, on unfortunately real-world victims – the effects debate.

Psychological group reports, from both the American Psychological Association

(APA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) ‘report that 90%+ U.S.
children play video games and that the number rises to 97% when factoring ‘kids
between the ages of 12 and 17’. [7] This data on its own means nothing to the
conversation, but the reports also go on to say that 85% of video games contain
some form of violence, meaning that there’s an 82.45% chance that a minor has
played a violent game; a large portion of the young population are exposed to
graphic content such as the Grand Theft Auto series. In addition to this, though this
statement specifies children < 8, children apparently spend a daily average of 69
minutes on handheld console games, 57 minutes on computer games etc. according
to Rideout in 2013. This suggests that a large portion of the young population are
constantly exposed to graphic content! These reports are reinforced by an article
from CNN that states that an 18-year old gunman killed nine people in Munich,
Germany said that he is/was a fan of first-person shooter (FPS) games. This is
worrisome as Grand Theft Auto had a first-person view implemented to it around
2014 where the gunman would have been 16-years-old. This is especially worrisome
due to the fact that an FPS fan was the perpetrator of a mass gun shooting – this
example and the reports, in my opinion, reinforce my opinion that violent video
games do cause people to become more violent in real life! Just for the sake of
mentioning it, even the recent article from the University of York, despite opposing
my opinion overall, documents that past research suggests ‘that the greater the
realism of the game the more primed players are by violent concepts, leading to
antisocial effects in the real world.’ [8]

Does the Immersive Factor of VR Start to Blur Our Differentiation

Between Reality and Fiction? Do you feel more empowered whilst
playing video games? How does this affect how you feel about
yourself when you’re not playing and do you think you could apply
the same satisfaction to real life tasks?
VR Players look towards virtual reality as an escape from the real-world to virtually
become characters such as the Last Dragonborn in Skyrim VR or Ethan Winters in
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard VR! [9] [10] This means that they seek entertainment and
diversion, which is the first division of the uses and gratification theory. Speaking of
that theory (once again), players seek to compare their lives and experiences AKA
their personal identity with texts and those featured in the text of this media –
personal identity being the final division of the uses and gratification theory. As a
self-made example, players relate to the Last Dragonborn’s struggle whilst exploring
the world of Skyrim outside of VR, so they literally become that character within VR
due to the player’s belief that their lives and experiences match that of game
characters in different worlds despite obvious over-exaggeration. Because of how
much players want to merge their lives with those of game franchises without
suffering the repercussions e.g. death, and because of how heroic the characters
tend to be to the player (especially in VR), players gain a sense of empowerment. In
fact, this is a quote from an article writer named Diana Tourjée from Broadly: ‘Over
the next several years, I lived a second life in the Diablo universe.’ [11] Now,
obviously she’s not referring to playing Diablo in VR! However, when you emphasise
the words second life and apply them to the rising reality that is VR, where you’ll feel
like you yourself is controlling your second life rather than a controller, ‘millions of
people around the world would happily trade their lives for their avatars' – sub-title of
that article. In my opinion, that’s really bad because whenever players take off those
headsets, and take on their real lives again, they’ll never achieve the same level of
satisfaction (from taking on real-life tasks) as they would from taking on tasks within
the video games they play. Lastly (just to conclude for this final topic) on the article
that I last mentioned, a man named Patrick (last name not mentioned in the article)
responded with his belief on the blur between fiction and reality. He stated that,
because of the realistic experiences that he had when playing with VR, ‘even though
none of the games were as involved or advanced as top-of-the-line MMOs’, MMOs
being his favourite genre, ‘[he] didn't want to take the headset off.’

For the podcast, a censoring sound was used to censor Edward Bennett
swearing in the podcast! [12] Also, the audio file refused to be uploaded
on Weebly for some reason, so I uploaded the file to YouTube.
However, a sole audio file can’t be uploaded, so I put an image with the
file on Adobe Premiere and exported the project as a video file instead.
[13]

Reference List
[1] Kotaku. (2017). Infinite Warfare's Supply Drops Are Ruining Call of Duty. Retrieve
from. https://kotaku.com/infinite-warfares-supply-drops-are-ruining-call-of-duty-
1793529824 [Accessed: 22 January 2018].

[2] Forbes. (2016). 'Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare's Awful Supply Drop Loot Boxes
Are Ultimately Our Fault. Retrieve from.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/11/04/call-of-duty-infinite-warfares-
awful-supply-drop-loot-boxes-are-ultimately-our-fault/#6992d8c51d34 [Accessed: 22
January 2018].

[3] Activision Community. (2017). GAMBLING: GAMBLING: The Supply Drops

System NEED TO BE changed Just to be. Retrieve from.
https://community.callofduty.com/t5/Infinite-Warfare-General/GAMBLING-The-
Supply-Drops-System-NEED-TO-BE-changed-Just-to-be/td-p/10227944 [Accessed:
22 January 2018].
[4] Polygon. (2016). Counter-Strike YouTubers revealed as owners of gambling site
they promoted (update). Retrieve from.
https://www.polygon.com/2016/7/4/12093546/csgo-lotto-tmartn-syndicate-youtube-
disclosure [Accessed: 29 January 2018].

[5] GameSpot. (2017). Shortly Before Star Wars: Battlefront 2's Release, EA
Removes Microtransactions For Now. Retrieve from.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/shortly-before-star-wars-battlefront-2s-release-
ea/1100-6455042/ [Accessed: 22 January 2018].

[6] The Australian. (2017). When violent games become reality. Retrieve from.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/grand-theft-auto-gang-when-violent-
games-become-reality/news-story/12cec39213b9663d8d664ef2f992cfb5 [Accessed:
29 January 2018].

[7] CNN. (2016). Do video games lead to violence?. Retrieve from.

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/25/health/video-games-and-violence/index.html
[Accessed: 29 January 2018].

[8] University of York. (2018). No evidence to support link between violent video
games and behaviour. Retrieve from. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-
events/news/2018/research/no-evidence-to-link-violence-and-video-games/
[Accessed: 29 January 2018].

[9] Elder Scrolls Wiki. (Date Unknown). Last Dragonborn. Retrieve from.
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Dragonborn [Accessed: 29 January 2018].

[10] Wikipedia. (2018). Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Retrieve from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil_7:_Biohazard [Accessed: 31 January
2018].

[11] Broadly. (2016). Real Life Is Not Enough: On Choosing Virtual Reality over the
Physical World. Retrieve from. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mgmmdv/real-
life-is-not-enough-on-choosing-virtual-reality-over-the-physical-world [Accessed: 31
January 2018].

[12] Sound Bible. (2011). Censored Beep Sound. Retrieve from.

http://soundbible.com/1806-Censored-Beep.html [Accessed: 04 February 2018].

[13] networx recruitment. (Date Unknown). Wiltshire College. Retrieve from.

https://recruitment.software/case_studies/wiltshire-college/ [Accessed: 05 February
2018].