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> It's not something we should trivialize or laugh at or compare to baseball cards. This seems like a strange comparison to reject. Baseball cards were origina

> It's not something we should trivialize or laugh at or compare to baseball cards. This seems like a strange comparison to reject. Baseball cards were originally 'prizes' packaged with other products, and they were randomized to create excitement and keep people brand-loyal while they hoped to find the prize they wanted. They're the precursor to CCG booster packs, and from there to MMO loot systems, so of course we should compare loot boxes to baseball cards! And it's even darker than that. The major originators of baseball cards were tobacco companies, so you'd go out and buy ATC cigarettes in hopes of getting Honus Wagner. The causal chain from baseball cards to smoking to cancer was far tighter than the chain from loot boxes to problem gambling to suicide, and yet we're told that loot boxes are a real problem, not like baseball cards. Exploiting people, and targeting kids, with randomized prizes is way older than B.F. Skinner's work. It's a minor side note of course, not the core of the discussion, but it's a bit concerning to see a researcher specializing in loot boxes botch his history so badly.

LukeWalsh 7y ago
I thought this was strange too. I was just watching Gary open a few $500 football card boxes today (5 cards in each). Upon opening a box without any rare players he said: "That's what you get sometimes gambling!" So I think people know that's what's going on.
- thephyber 7y ago
  > So I think people know that's what's going on. Addicts generally know at some level that they are addicted. The core problem is more that addicts can't break the compulsive behavior without a significant intervention.
  - crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
    In my experience as a recovering behavior addict, the difficulty partially lies in a lot of cultural concepts around addiction, recovery, and learning that run counter to what science tells us about learning. "Instantaneous recovery" is described as a random chance event, as opposed to possibly the outcome of someone who's got a better grip on how to grow because they were missing a single piece of wisdom that, when acquired or acted on, led to cascading network effects in the brain.
  - slg 7y ago
    Which is one of the reasons why these digital addictions can be such a big problem. Someone can't repeatedly open one pack of baseball cards after another endlessly. A limited number of packs exist, it requires time and energy to acquire them, and you will often have to interact with a human to get them. Those limitations serve as minor interventions. They act as a throttle on the addiction that simply doesn't exist when opening a never ending supply of loot boxes in the privacy of your own home.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    I get hackernews think their conscious brains are in total control of their destiny, and I do think the nerdier and smarter you are the more that can be true, but psychology basically has proven this to be a self-delusion. Your subconscious and instinctual drives have ludicrous control over your conscious thought. Anyone who knows an intelligent drug addict knows the lengths of rationalization that a conscious brain will wrap itself into in order to justify a fix.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      > Anyone who knows an intelligent drug addict knows the lengths of rationalization that a conscious brain will wrap itself into in order to justify a fix. Talking to a clever, articulate addict can be downright scary Their ability to rationalize isn't just limited to fooling themselves and downplaying the problem to others. It's quite a surprise to hear someone justify their habit so persuasively that you have to go back and reevaluate whether they're right. (Of course, another part of this is that a really self-aware addict is especially likely to see the motivators of their behavior. If they're consciously self-medicating, even harmfully, "just quit" is a crappy answer.)
csommers 7y ago
At least there’s something physical and tangible with sports cards...I can’t say the same for Overwatch packs etc.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Similar intrinsic worth though (c. zero).
  - kjsbfkjbf 7y ago
    But there was still exchange value. Furthermore, the scale and ease of purchase of lootboxes vs. baseball cards are incomparable.
    - falcolas 7y ago
      Being unable to resell, or even often gift, the output from lootboxes makes a significant difference as well.
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      People do sell loot box items in a lot of games... that often just makes the gambling problem worse, because people buy the loot boxes thinking they will make real world money.
      - Bartweiss 7y ago
        Good timing for this - the Team Fortress 2 hat market just collapsed over a change in drop rates. It's probably worth differentiating tradeable loot boxes, which end up used like stock speculation, from untradeable ones, which seem to be used more like slot machines.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        Indeed, letting players try to scam each other seems slightly less evil than scamming the players directly.
supercanuck 7y ago
Some stores would only have one box of baseball cards. You would literally run out after 24 packs were sold. It wasn't like baseball card stores were ubiquitous, like they are today. There were natural bottlenecks in place, where as today, people can literally blast through 24 packs with a tap of a screen. its the scalability of these loot boxes that are a problem now.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  I mostly wanted to point out that baseball cards are a natural and historical point of comparison, but I agree that loot boxes are have moved past their predecessors. They've rolled together the tactics of CCGs, MMOs, and casinos into something thoroughly unholy. From CCGs and even baseball cards, we obviously get artificial rarity and the basic Skinner box experience. From MMOs, we get scheduled rewards to draw players back, player-bound prizes that can't go to an aftermarket like cards, and unconstrained on-screen purchasing. From gambling, we get secondary currencies for fluid spending, the lights-and-sounds opening experience designed to make bad outcomes feel rewarding, almost-got-it visuals like a one-off reel, and banned-in-casinos tactics like scheduling wins based on money spent. The results are genuinely alarming. I used to think these fears were overblown and 'whales' were mostly people with spare cash, but then I started to see kids interacting with freemium games. It's a distillation of decades of cash-extraction tactics, aimed at children or at distracted adults, and delivered by a vector that's constantly accessible. Honestly, it's one of the best arguments I've seen that people can be systematically harmed by access to products even without physical addiction or health damage.
  - taurath 7y ago
    Its very serious, and it IS a problem and its not just "suckers". At the very minimum, they're preying on children who don't have the capacity to understand the depths of addiction - but in this case I'd say its extremely common in adults to lack the antibodies for this type of reward system. Its predatory pure and simple, in ways that we have legislated against in the past (think of the literal snake oil salespeople - the FDA was created to combat hucksters looking to make a buck).
mc32 7y ago
But it’s comparing them to something which existed in its time to something which doesn’t exist today is kind of tangential. Baseball cards today don’t have a connection to tobacco.
musicale 7y ago
Baseball cards, trading card games, capsule machines, blind box toys and collectibles... they are all legalized gambling for kids (and adults) and loot boxes are simply more of the same but in digital form. I'm not sure why the former aren't regulated more closely though. Crane/claw machines and Stacker arcade machines are "skill" games that are very close to gambling given the irritating (though technically not random) variation in claw tension (making the game almost impossible to win at low tension) and the randomness of the last level of Stacker.

LukeWalsh 7y ago

I thought this was strange too. I was just watching Gary open a few $500 football card boxes today (5 cards in each). Upon opening a box without any rare players he said: "That's what you get sometimes gambling!" So I think people know that's what's going on.

thephyber 7y ago
> So I think people know that's what's going on. Addicts generally know at some level that they are addicted. The core problem is more that addicts can't break the compulsive behavior without a significant intervention.
- crawfordcomeaux 7y ago
  In my experience as a recovering behavior addict, the difficulty partially lies in a lot of cultural concepts around addiction, recovery, and learning that run counter to what science tells us about learning. "Instantaneous recovery" is described as a random chance event, as opposed to possibly the outcome of someone who's got a better grip on how to grow because they were missing a single piece of wisdom that, when acquired or acted on, led to cascading network effects in the brain.
- slg 7y ago
  Which is one of the reasons why these digital addictions can be such a big problem. Someone can't repeatedly open one pack of baseball cards after another endlessly. A limited number of packs exist, it requires time and energy to acquire them, and you will often have to interact with a human to get them. Those limitations serve as minor interventions. They act as a throttle on the addiction that simply doesn't exist when opening a never ending supply of loot boxes in the privacy of your own home.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  I get hackernews think their conscious brains are in total control of their destiny, and I do think the nerdier and smarter you are the more that can be true, but psychology basically has proven this to be a self-delusion. Your subconscious and instinctual drives have ludicrous control over your conscious thought. Anyone who knows an intelligent drug addict knows the lengths of rationalization that a conscious brain will wrap itself into in order to justify a fix.
  - Bartweiss 7y ago
    > Anyone who knows an intelligent drug addict knows the lengths of rationalization that a conscious brain will wrap itself into in order to justify a fix. Talking to a clever, articulate addict can be downright scary Their ability to rationalize isn't just limited to fooling themselves and downplaying the problem to others. It's quite a surprise to hear someone justify their habit so persuasively that you have to go back and reevaluate whether they're right. (Of course, another part of this is that a really self-aware addict is especially likely to see the motivators of their behavior. If they're consciously self-medicating, even harmfully, "just quit" is a crappy answer.)

csommers 7y ago

At least there’s something physical and tangible with sports cards...I can’t say the same for Overwatch packs etc.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Similar intrinsic worth though (c. zero).
- kjsbfkjbf 7y ago
  But there was still exchange value. Furthermore, the scale and ease of purchase of lootboxes vs. baseball cards are incomparable.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    Being unable to resell, or even often gift, the output from lootboxes makes a significant difference as well.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    People do sell loot box items in a lot of games... that often just makes the gambling problem worse, because people buy the loot boxes thinking they will make real world money.
    - Bartweiss 7y ago
      Good timing for this - the Team Fortress 2 hat market just collapsed over a change in drop rates. It's probably worth differentiating tradeable loot boxes, which end up used like stock speculation, from untradeable ones, which seem to be used more like slot machines.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        Indeed, letting players try to scam each other seems slightly less evil than scamming the players directly.

supercanuck 7y ago

Some stores would only have one box of baseball cards. You would literally run out after 24 packs were sold. It wasn't like baseball card stores were ubiquitous, like they are today. There were natural bottlenecks in place, where as today, people can literally blast through 24 packs with a tap of a screen. its the scalability of these loot boxes that are a problem now.

Bartweiss 7y ago
I mostly wanted to point out that baseball cards are a natural and historical point of comparison, but I agree that loot boxes are have moved past their predecessors. They've rolled together the tactics of CCGs, MMOs, and casinos into something thoroughly unholy. From CCGs and even baseball cards, we obviously get artificial rarity and the basic Skinner box experience. From MMOs, we get scheduled rewards to draw players back, player-bound prizes that can't go to an aftermarket like cards, and unconstrained on-screen purchasing. From gambling, we get secondary currencies for fluid spending, the lights-and-sounds opening experience designed to make bad outcomes feel rewarding, almost-got-it visuals like a one-off reel, and banned-in-casinos tactics like scheduling wins based on money spent. The results are genuinely alarming. I used to think these fears were overblown and 'whales' were mostly people with spare cash, but then I started to see kids interacting with freemium games. It's a distillation of decades of cash-extraction tactics, aimed at children or at distracted adults, and delivered by a vector that's constantly accessible. Honestly, it's one of the best arguments I've seen that people can be systematically harmed by access to products even without physical addiction or health damage.
- taurath 7y ago
  Its very serious, and it IS a problem and its not just "suckers". At the very minimum, they're preying on children who don't have the capacity to understand the depths of addiction - but in this case I'd say its extremely common in adults to lack the antibodies for this type of reward system. Its predatory pure and simple, in ways that we have legislated against in the past (think of the literal snake oil salespeople - the FDA was created to combat hucksters looking to make a buck).

mc32 7y ago

But it’s comparing them to something which existed in its time to something which doesn’t exist today is kind of tangential. Baseball cards today don’t have a connection to tobacco.

musicale 7y ago

Baseball cards, trading card games, capsule machines, blind box toys and collectibles... they are all legalized gambling for kids (and adults) and loot boxes are simply more of the same but in digital form. I'm not sure why the former aren't regulated more closely though. Crane/claw machines and Stacker arcade machines are "skill" games that are very close to gambling given the irritating (though technically not random) variation in claw tension (making the game almost impossible to win at low tension) and the randomness of the last level of Stacker.