The final kill is made, the score is tallied, the counter-terrorists have won the day. Ordinarily you would be happy with this outcome, except today you were a terrorist and you failed to bomb your targets. For many years gamers have been killing each other in what can only be described as “good clean fun”. But now? Things are a little different.
Today, after your match of Counter Strike:Go a little indicator flashes up that you have received a weapon case in your inventory. It is a random drop, most of the time you’ll get nothing, sometimes you’ll get something pretty to use in game. The real value is that you can sell these items on the steam marketplace for steam wallet cash.
Further, with your weapon case? You can also choose to buy a key to unlock it. If you do so, you are presented with the chance of winning an extra rare gun or perhaps something more common. Inevitably, curiosity will get to you. You buy a key, you select the “open” option and the graphics spin like a slot machine. It cost you around $3 for the chance, but what is that small amount when you could win something potentially worth a hundred?
The wheel stops, you win something like this:
Which is worth all of $0.05. You gambled, you lost, life goes on and it is all just part of the game.
But wait, “you gambled”? Suddenly it may not be just part of the game at all.
Every country has different laws about online gambling. Some allow it, some restrict it to serious degrees and others, like Australia, are inconsistent. Sports betting for example is fine, but not if an event is live. The Interactive Gambling Act further suggests that online lotteries are legal, as long as they are not the ‘instant-win’ style scratch cards.
Does this apply to Valve? You are certainly paying money for the “chance” to earn more. You are of course, under no compulsion to sell it and you can’t really get your money back as that income stays on your account (less a cut of course). So does that make all the difference? It is worth asking the question, but I would suggest there is unlikely to be a clear cut answer. Certainly it would seem to in the worst case fall under the cloud of “provisions for emerging technologies” where you would suggest lawmakers have never even heard of it.
In general terms, you could expect Valve have this all covered off in the legal world, so it serves perhaps as more of a curiosity. It does however further raise the issue of what potential problems these schemes could raise socially. It is certainly no curiosity that gambling is addictive. What are the actual chances of getting an “extremely rare item?” it is currently impossible to tell.
I would suggest a proactive approach would be welcome to protect people who may be susceptible to the negative implications of these services. Namely:
- Display the odds of winning each item before a key is purchased to open a case.
- Implement proper parental controls so that stored credit cards cannot be continuously used to feed that “one more case” feeling.
- Actively monitor spending habits and provide hard limits or pre commitments for actions that could be conceived to be based on chance.
- Actively seek out and refer gamers who are spending a lot of money to services such as gambling helplines.
Overly dramatic? Maybe. Putting roadblocks or disincentives in to stop people opening cases for potential profit? Yes. It could be perceived as not being in Valve’s best interest to highlight the chances of success in these ways, but in the long term I think they will have to. It might only be $3 to open a case, but slot machines can accept small denominations too and it can quickly add up. To me this is especially a problem given the videogame demographics or people who may not be mature enough to deal with potential addiction.
I see the whole setup as a quickly evolving system that will have issues one way or another as it grows. What I would like to see is the services growing in a socially responsible way from as close to the start as possible. We already have weapon cases and esports cases and chances for “foil drops” from booster cards. Many other games are also offering real world investments with outcomes later dictated by the random gods above. Will there be a day soon when the line is crossed without adequate protections in place?
If these type of issues are not addressed and discussed before real problems emerge? We may just be having much more difficult conversations down the track.
How do you feel about these services being offered by game publishers? Do you think there is the potential for problems or will it always be manageable? If not, how would you propose to get ahead of the issue?
The Toddhunter Report 