That's... not what I said nor what I intended to convey?
Then my apologies, because that's just one of the many staggeringly intellectually dishonest tacks others in these topics have taken (and continue to take, to push their agenda of Moral Panic).
The law defines what constitutes gambling in a jurisdiction. Now that lootboxes have gained the interest of regulators, it was found that certain implementations of lootboxes fall under this definition under certain jurisdictions. Others do not.
I assume we're still discussing the Netherlands report here, not the Hawaii response of this topic?
Just to clarify when I am referring to "they" and "their" I am referring to that report which you posted.
Yes; I disagree with their conclusion, because their conclusion is not that lootboxes are intrinsically gambling, it is that (ab)use of third party services can make them akin to gambling.
This is no different to - say - wagering on the outcome of a childrens sports match.
The
activity itself is not the problem; it is the action of
third party actors, and legislation
already exists in most jurisdictions for extra-judicial or unlicensed bookmakers to be held liable for their actions.
Because it is possible to gamble on the outcome of almost any activity; not all activities should be legislated as gambling.
Additionally, lootboxes have been found to have elements that are akin to games of chance. These elements contribute to addiction potential and have been operationalized in the analytical instrument applied in the Dutch study in order to assess overall addition risk. Applying lootbox implementations to the instrument gives an indication of their degree of addiction potential based on known contributors. The ten lootbox implementations studied found, on average, a moderate to high risk. The ones on the low end were akin to bingo in terms of addiction potential, while the ones on the higher end were akin to roulette or blackjack.
This addiction potential exists independently of whether a certain lootbox implementation constitutes gambling in the word of the law of a certain jurisdiction or not.
And the problem with their methodology - as per their report - is that the identifiers they used are through the lens of gambling devices not entertainment devices, because things they identified a potential risks ('showing 'near misses', audio visual cues to reward successes, etc) are equally applicable to - say - the QTEs from the latest God Of War.
Videogames
in general are addicting. They are
designed to be addicting.
A lot of money is spent on making them aurally and visually enticing, and anything coming from a big studio has gone through all sorts of focus testing and analytics to make them as engaging and pleasurable an experience as possible.
Examining games
in general through those same lenses is going to yield similar results of being able to classify games on an 'addiction' scale ranging from 'bingo' to 'roulette'.
The problem isn't what a society can do to stop people harming themselves through their own choices - its where you draw a line and
allow people to
make their own choices.
And that is
vastly wider ranging than "Some people spend money they can't really afford to on digital loot".
