Players are addicted to "Krypton Gold", and manufacturers lie down and count money: Is the card drawing game innovation or gambling?
"When I was a freshman, I spent 10,000 yuan on card drawing page games. I played Hearthstone in my sophomore year and junior year, and I also smoked it every day. After graduation, I spent 30,000 yuan on "Onmyoji". Now I am playing "Three Kingdoms·Fantasy Continent". "It costs 35,000, just smoke."
Zhang Peng, a 27-year-old game enthusiast, has roughly calculated the spending on "drawing card" games in the past few years.
"Six or seven models are loaded together, and a total of 100,000 yuan is spent, which is ten times more than non-drawing games."
Why is the card game so good "krypton"?
Its core gameplay is: pay a certain amount of cash or consume cash in exchange for game currency to obtain items/characters in the "card pool" in order to enhance performance.
The items in the "card pool" are not chosen by you, but appear randomly, and the value and the probability of appearance are usually inversely proportional.
This is a little trick for manufacturers to use the psychological "Skinner Box" principle to promote player consumption.
To put it simply, the player may not necessarily get what he wants after spending money, but under the psychological expectation of "the next hand may be drawn", it is easy to fall into a state of spending money all the time.
In overseas, the gameplay of spending money to draw randomly is also called "opening boxes" or "loot boxes" (Loot Boxes).
Paying for high-quality games is understandable. Randomness is also a basic element of game design. However, the "box opening" linked to money has its own characteristics. In fact, it has certain similarities with gambling: put a certain amount of cash, have a certain probability, It's easy to get addicted.
At present, the reason for separating random extraction of online games from gambling is that the items obtained after random extraction cannot be converted back into money. However, with the rise of account transactions, it does not seem to be alarmist to include "opening the box" into gambling for supervision.
A reporter from The Paper (www.thepaper.cn) noted that in Europe, many countries have explored the inclusion of "box opening" games under the regulatory framework of gambling-related regulations, warning about the connection between "box opening" and gambling, and studying its effects. The influence of minors.
In the East Asian environment, there is a cultural foundation of "gashapon" and "blind box", and the acceptance of "opening the box" is relatively higher.
However, under the flood of "open box" gameplay, the impact on the development of the game industry itself and the innovation of gameplay is also worthy of vigilance.
The money-making effect of opening the box
Why the "box opening" gameplay is so commonly added to the game is related to its money-making effect, especially on the premise that the game itself is of good quality, which adds to the game’s ability to attract money. Last year’s popular game " "The Original God" is a typical case.
According to statistics from the data analysis platform Sensor Tower, since its global release on September 28, 2020, the mobile terminal of "Yuan Shen" has attracted more than 1 billion US dollars in 6 months.
In contrast, "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", a classic game on the Switch platform released in March 2017, had sold 4.7 million copies as of the end of September of that year, roughly calculated at a price of $59.99 per copy. A total of 280 million U.S. dollars in gold in 6 months.
Why is "Original God" more profitable?
This is not only due to the difference between the two publishing platforms, but also because of the different business models.
"The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild" is a buyout system, while "The Original God" is a free download and in-game purchase, and introduces the "box-opening" gameplay: new game characters are constantly being introduced, which need to be obtained by players .
In "Original God", the extraction of new characters/props is called "pray", and the basic probability of 5-star (referring to the highest level in the game) character and item wish is 0.6%.
In order to encourage players to spend, "Original God" reminds that every ten prayers must have a character of four stars or more, which is called "the bottom".
Sensor Tower commented that since its launch, the game has frequently launched new versions, adding new characters and activities to the game content.
Every time a new character is released, it brings a wave of revenue growth to the game.
On March 2nd, when the new character Walnut went live, the mobile terminal revenue of "Yuan Shen" was nearly 13 million U.S. dollars.
The new character Mandrill debuted on February 3, and the mobile terminal revenue exceeded 15 million U.S. dollars that day.
In comparison, the game’s average daily revenue on the mobile terminal has been US$5.8 million since its launch.
"The success of "The Original God" is inseparable from continuous operational investment." Sensor Tower concluded.
"The Original God" is just one of the successful practitioners of this gameplay. The open box gameplay can be traced back to "Zhengtu", and there is also a 2016 phenomenon-level mobile game "Onmyoji".
"Onmyoji" draws characters from the pool, and is divided into SSR, SR, S, and R levels according to their ability value.
With good luck, players who win the SSR are jokingly called "European Kings", while players with poor luck will laugh at themselves as "Non-Chiefs", which has become part of the game culture.
After that, random selection gameplay appeared more commonly in mobile games, such as "Fate/Grand Order" and "Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition", which is the most mainstream online game charging model after the buyout system and the payment of items.
Talking about the extraction experience of this type of game, game player Zhang Peng said: "Some planners are very hardworking for your money. They issue new cards every month, and the intensity of the new cards is relatively high, almost every month. Let's draw a wave."
"Most of the (games) on the market use this to make profits." Independent game developer Wang Yi told The Paper News reporter, "If the game does not have this set of profitable things, it will be difficult to make a profit and it is difficult to survive. Don't do it. There are many people in this system, and there are many who do this system but don’t use it for profit. But relatively speaking, you may not see them anymore, or you may only stay in a small circle."
The principle of addiction
What's the secret of random gameplay that makes people keep "Krypton Gold"?
Behind this is an ingenious psychological design.
American behaviorist psychologist Skinner once designed a set of "Skinner box" experiments. A white mouse or a pigeon is placed in the box. When the animal presses the lever, the food will fall into the box. .
Soon animals learned to press the lever.
This reveals the relationship between reward and behavior.
Next, put a pigeon or white mouse in the box. When the lever is pressed, the food will fall probabilistically, and the frequency of the animal pressing the lever has been significantly increased.
When the food no longer falls, the behavior disappears very slowly.
This experiment is often used to explain the "addiction" mechanism of gambling.
Du Jiang, chief physician of the Substance Addiction Department of Shanghai Mental Health Center, introduced to The Paper, “In the Skinner box experiment, under this kind of random reward, the frequency of pigeons operating levers will increase significantly. This is based on behavioral experiments. It proves that random and variable rewards can more trigger individuals to engage in this behavior."
For this reason, the Skinner Box experiment was written into the "Four Major Product Logics for Addiction to Allow Users to Cultivate Use Habits" and "Behavioral Addiction" and other product design guidelines. It is a must for Internet companies and game companies when designing products. Prepare knowledge.
In addition to behavioral experiments, Du Jiang introduced that there are some experiments that have verified from biological mechanisms that random rewards can stimulate dopamine secretion: let the monkeys look at the lights on the screen, give the monkeys sugar water when the red light is on, and no sugar water when the green light is on. , Use electrical signals to record the process of monkey secretion of dopamine.
After the monkeys have established conditioned reflexes, whenever the green light is on, and the sugar water has not been given to the monkeys, the monkeys secrete dopamine.
The experiment went one step further: adding a blue light. When the blue light is on, there is only a 50% chance that the monkey will get sugar water, which means that the rewards are intermittently random.
Studies have found that when the blue light is on, the secretion of dopamine in monkeys will be advanced and the peak will be higher.
"This means that the blue light, that is, the variable reward, will make the monkey release dopamine faster and higher, and produce a stronger sense of pleasure." Du Jiang said.
These two experiments may explain to a certain extent, why many players "cannot go back" after experiencing the fun of random rewards.
Gambling controversy
It is also precisely because of the fact that money is linked to it and its addictive nature, some people believe that the "open box" gameplay is gambling-like.
The Paper Journalists noticed that the UK is one of the countries that has more in-depth discussions on the "box opening" gameplay.
In October 2019, The Children's Commissioner for England (The Children's Commissioner for England) released a report on interviews with minors between the ages of 10 and 16 to understand the impact of games on them.
The report has a special section entitled "Gaming and Gambling". The report shows that children’s spending on games has increased year by year, and the design of games also encourages consumption, such as loot boxes.
"It's like gambling, you spend money, you may not get good things, you may also get particularly good." 16-year-old FIFA player Tim said.
The report pointed out that due to the lack of definite results of these purchases, children feel as if they are wasting money, but the possibility of getting a good return makes them feel that it is difficult to control their own expenditures. Generally speaking, children do not have Effective strategies to manage your online spending.
"Given that gambling is completely forbidden in children's offline life, the emergence of gambling in online life also needs to be closely watched." The report said.
Further, there are voices calling for "opening the box" to be included in the framework of gambling regulations.
In December 2019, according to the British "Guardian" report, the British House of Commons recommended that "loot boxes" in video games should be treated as gambling and children should be prohibited from buying them.
At that time, the British Commission for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) issued a report on immersive technology and addictive technology.
The report stated that this “loot box” gameplay was “designed to use psychological mechanisms related to gambling behavior.” DCMS Committee Chairman Damian Collins (Damian Collins) said: “You spend money to open the box. To play a game of probability, we ask the government to explain why loot boxes are not subject to the "Gambling Law."
In January 2020, the British National Health Service (NHS) raised concerns about "opening the box" from a mental health perspective.
NHS mental health director Claire Murdoch (Claire Murdoch) warned video game companies that these game companies are risking addiction to children by constructing "gambling tasks" in games.
The NHS article also mentioned that in the current legislation on gambling in the UK, "opening the box" is not classified as gambling for the time being, because there is no official way for the props obtained by "opening the box" to be reversed into money. Nevertheless, on third-party websites such as eBay, it is still easy to find the sale of accounts and rare items.
This intensified the temptation to "open the box" for players.
The age rating of the game and the announcement of the probability of extraction have become the countermeasures proposed by all parties.
The DCMS report recommends that if the "loot box" is only an in-game reward, then there is no need to manage it. If the "loot box" is purchased with money, then the game should at least be marked as containing gambling content and age rating.
The NHS called for: First, to ban the sale of "box-opening" games that encourage children to participate in gambling; second, to introduce fair and realistic spending restrictions to prevent people from squandering such games; and third, to "open the box" by users. Before, the user is clearly informed of the probability of the item appearing.
After many calls, in June 2020, the British government formally responded to the report of the British Commission for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) on "opening the box".
The British government stated that it had announced a review of the Gambling Act 2005 (Gambling Act 2005) in December 2019, with a view to solving the problem of loot boxes.
In order to ensure that the government’s policy is based on a deep understanding of the problem, the government will launch an evidence collection campaign for loot boxes, which will be used to check the size of the market, its operating mechanism, and its impact on consumers (especially young people). Impact, including links to gambling problems.
According to the British government website, the above-mentioned evidence collection activities for the impact of unpacking have been carried out from September 23, 2020 to November 22, 2020.
In addition to the United Kingdom, there have also been voices in the United States that have proposed restrictions on open box play.
In 2019, US Senator Josh Hawley proposed a bill called "Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act", requiring game companies to prohibit the sale of loot boxes to children under the age of 18, otherwise they will be punished financially.
The most radical country is Belgium.
In April 2018, the Belgian Minister of Justice Koen Geens announced the results of the country’s Gaming Commission’s investigation into the “box opening” of video games. The investigation found that “Overwatch”, “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” and “FIFA18” All three popular games violate Belgian gambling laws.
The Belgian Gambling Commission decided that game publishers need to delete the "loot box" in the game, otherwise they will face a fine.
The Guardian reported that the Belgian government’s position is that there are more harmless ways to make money than applying gambling principles to games.
How to supervise
Compared with the previous countries, my country's supervision of random selection of gameplay is at the forefront, as early as 2016, it clearly put forward the requirements for publicity.
In 2016, following the fire of "Onmyoji", the former Ministry of Culture issued the "Notice of the Ministry of Culture on Regulating Online Game Operations and Strengthening Interim and Ex-post Supervision Work", suggesting that online game operating companies adopt random selection methods to provide virtual props and value-added services. , Users shall not be required to participate in the form of direct investment of legal currency or virtual currency of online games.
At the same time, the "Notice" also stipulates that online game operating companies should promptly publish the name, performance, content, quantity and probability of extraction or synthesis of all virtual items and value-added services that may be extracted or synthesized on the game's official website or randomly selected page.
The publicly announced randomly selected relevant information shall be true and effective.
However, with regard to the previous article, game companies have made an article on the words "direct investment". In order to avoid "direct investment in legal currency or virtual currency of online games", game companies often set up several exchange procedures.
Taking "The Original God" as an example, wishing (drawing a card) needs to consume the fate of encounter/entanglement, the fate of encounter/entanglement needs to consume rough stones, the rough stones need to be exchanged for creation crystals, and the crystals need to be purchased with money-although After several exchanges, the nature of random selection has not changed: a certain amount is paid to select items/characters with random probability.
Regarding the latter, the probability of random selection is required to be announced. Since the formal implementation of the notice on May 1, 2017, mainstream online game companies have successively announced the corresponding probabilities.
But it is difficult for players to verify the authenticity of the probability: game companies are not obliged to provide source code, and it is difficult for players to verify the accuracy of probability through an infinite number of draws.
The Paper News reporter noticed that some players did use the historical prayer records provided by "The Original God" to design their own programs to capture them, so as to calculate the probability of extracting different star-rated characters/weapons.
"Original God" used to only be able to query historical records of 1 month, but later changed to 6 months.
Du Liang, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Literature of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, put forward the concept of monitored capital and digital gameplay in the article "Mobile Game Industry: Surveillance Capital and Digital Gameplay".
He said that the surveillance capital platform relies on the technical power in the hand to determine game settings such as gameplay mode, character image, character abilities, box-opening probability, etc. However, it is difficult for individual players to obtain the possibility of discussion and dialogue on the above issues.
How will it be managed in the future and how will it adapt to the new format?
It is worth noting that, according to the website of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the management function of online games has been transferred to the National Press and Publication Administration.
According to a report by the Legal Daily in early January 2020, the Central Propaganda Department is organizing the drafting of the Online Game Service Management Regulations to standardize all aspects of the online game industry from the perspective of top-level design and further improve the online game management system.
Mainstream is justice?
When random selection becomes more and more common, there are indeed game players who really enjoy the excitement brought by "random" and are accustomed to this kind of gameplay. Game companies are also happy to see it, making box opening gradually the most mainstream. Charging model.
An insider from a small and medium-sized game company explained the rationality of the "randomly selected gameplay" to The Paper News reporter: If all the game props/characters are clearly marked, the price of the top props/characters must be higher than the ordinary ones, and it may be "expensive." It's ridiculous".
"This has led to the fact that as long as rich players spend money on krypton gold, they will definitely be able to form a team of'slinging' white prostitution players. In this mode, the game will become as long as krypton gold, and they will definitely be able to obtain super characters. The weak and strong mode."
The person said: “The problem solved by drawing cards is to make the game look more balanced. For example, the rare card drop rate is low, but some lucky players get 10 draws, and the local tyrants may not draw 100 draws, so draw cards solve it. It is a matter of fairness, so that local players are not guaranteed to win with krypton gold."
In his view, the requirement for this type of gameplay is mainly to announce the probability of extraction, but he also pointed out that "some games do secretly change the explosion rate."
However, the emergence of "guarantee" has once again made this type of game a pay to win: as long as you spend money, you can be stronger.
The "guarantee" mechanism refers to ensuring that after a certain number of draws, the player will be able to obtain a rare and high-strength character/item.
Game player Zhang Peng said that a game he is playing now has a 40-draw guarantee: spending 400 yuan to draw 40 times can "guarantee a five-star guarantee."
"The more I smoke, the more I hope that he will remain the way he is now. I charged 3,000 yuan, so why can't I beat the person who charged 6 yuan?" Zhang Peng said bluntly.
In any case, from "opening the box" to "guaranteeing the bottom" mechanism, this is an innovation in the game business model, rather than a substantial innovation in gameplay.
According to Deng Jian, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Journalism and Communication of Peking University, these randomly selected games are generally platform-based numerical games. In essence, they are a set of numerical systems that are assigned to read and communicate by different players.
What is opened by "opening the box" is essentially data: the equipment you get is not just a symbol in the game, but also a string of values. Different equipment represents the difference in value distribution.
"Once the value becomes the only important thing, krypton gold will become inevitable, because the value will become the carrier of profit circulation." Deng Jian said.
In his view, the domestic game design method centered on numerical competition, although adapted to the requirements of capital appreciation, is only a historical stage.
"Any gameplay will have the day when it will withdraw from the mainstream gameplay. When such a numerically-driven game design method is not fun for everyone, there will be new gameplays going to the mainstream."
Deng Jian quoted the views of Akira Nakamura, a professor at Ritsumeikan University in Japan and chairman of the Japan Video Game Research Association, and believed that the innovative advantages of China's game industry are mainly reflected in the innovation of business models.
"In the early 2000s, China’s game industry lacked design power, mainly acting as agents for Korean games. Chinese game companies became agents and operators. They knew how to turn games into platform-based meta-commodities, rather than games with rich content. Works, through the game program to commercialize the equipment (item) in the game, opening the box is also the same logic." Deng Jian said, "When Chinese manufacturers bring the business model innovation to the extreme, it becomes'opening the box. ', it is easier to make money than the vendor model of selling monthly cards."
Deng Jian pointed out that when gamers are tired of games that are too krypton gold, "you can't come up with new games and new ways of playing, it becomes a very fatal problem, and the game industry should have this awareness."
The paper reporter Chen Yuxi