A few months ago, on November 17, reddit user ‘Kensgold’ posted an open letter that shook the gaming community to its core. Kensgold, like any other 14 year old, was an avid gamer, who was introduced to loot boxes in a city-building mobile game. “It’s only a couple dollars,” he innocently said, like any other 14 year old, as he purchased his first loot box to further advance in his game. Fast forward 5 years into the future, and having spent well over ten thousand dollars, Kensgold now has a gambling addiction, working two jobs and considering dropping out of high school in order to support his expensive ‘hobby’. What went wrong? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? Having worked with many people like Kensgold for more than 20 years, I, like many of us gathered here today, ask …show more content…
According to the Digital Age Report (2018), 90% of Australians in the age group of 5 to 14 played games in 2017, and with the mobile market being flooded with a sea of free-to-play games saturated with loot boxes, it’s inevitable that our children, who we can’t trust to protect themselves, will be exposed to the dangers of gambling at young ages, which we all know can and will lead to a plethora of problems ranging from financial devastation, addictions to alcohol and drugs, and in some cases, stories like Kensgold’s, all because our children opened the digital age’s version of the Pandora’s box.
The matter at hand is only exacerbated by the numerous thousands of videos depicting the unboxing of loot boxes on YouTube, which only serves to normalise the anti-consumer practice, and to provide a further incentive for children to follow in the steps of their online role models. And while legally, loot boxes aren’t considered a form gambling because a payout is guaranteed, the addictive nature of gambling is clearly present, and thus, loot boxes must be banned before even more players are inevitably turned into