Conceptualising problematic in-game microtransactions and their effects through a player-centric perspective

This thesis leverages player perspectives to understand problematic microtransactions in video games. Microtransactions are uncapped, repeated in-game purchases, and their conceptualisation as being problematic refers to instances where they have the potential to have a negative effect on players in any way. Their inclusion in games has raised concerns around whether they might be linked to harm for players who interact with them. However, there is no comprehensive evidence base which works with players to understand the landscape of problematic microtransactions and their prevalence. Likewise, there is no understanding of possible effects of microtransactions beyond loot boxes. The first study, a large-scale survey, asks players about problematic microtransactions which they have encountered in mobile and desktop games. The result is a categorisation of 35 types of microtransactions. The second study analyses player reviews of top-grossing games for mentions of these microtransactions to assess their prevalence, and finds they are present in 88% of mobile games and 28% of desktop games. The following two chapters aim to understand whether there could be links between playing games that include certain types of microtransactions and problems for player wellbeing. The third chapter is an interview study to define what such problems could be and who could experience them. The fourth chapter statistically tests the findings of chapter 3. I find no significant links between player psychological or environmental traits, game type, investment of time or money into the game. The work presented contributes by showing the breadth of problematic microtransactions and their concerning prevalence in top-grossing games. It also indicates there are possible harms linked to playing such games, although they may not be a cause for concern when it comes to an average player. Taken together, it points to a need to incorporate player perspectives when studying microtransactions further

Casual Creators in the Wild : A Typology of Commercial Generative Creativity Support Tools

Casual creators are a genre of creativity support tool that integrate a generative system into the creative process with the goal of empowering amateurs to engage in autotelic and enjoyable creativity. They have been posited as a unique means of democratising creativity through the support of user exploration via system generativity, yet little is known about what casual creators are actually available to wider audiences. We conducted a qualitative analysis of currently available casual creators on the App Store. We found three categories of interaction techniques in widely available casual creators, which we describe in their exploration potential, feedback speed, and user autonomy

Defining the esports bettor: evidence from an online panel survey of Emerging Adults Gambling Survey

Competitive video gaming (esports) is a growing multi-national, billion-dollar industry. Esports cultures replicate traditional sports cultures, involving elite athletes, teams, league sponsorships, large viewing audiences, high profile leagues and championships, and opportunities to bet on outcomes. However, little is known about people who bet on esports, it is generally considered a niche practice. Using data from the Emerging Adults Gambling Study, a non-probability survey of 3549 people aged 16–24 living in Great Britain, the profile of esports bettors was compared with those who bet on other sports and non-gamblers. Those who bet on esports were more likely to be male, to be from nonwhite ethnic groups, to be heavily involved in playing digital games themselves, and to have higher rates of gambling involvement and problem gambling. Multivariate analysis showed a strong relationship between engaging in gambling-like practices within digital games and esports betting (for example, the purchase of loot boxes for money, or betting skins on external websites). Frequency of playing digital games was not associated with esports betting, suggesting it is not how often someone engages with digital games that is correlated with esports betting, but rather the different type of practices they undertake when playing video games

Learnings From The Case of Maple Refugees: A Story of Loot Boxes, Probability Disclosures, and Gamer Consumer Activism

The article synthesises what we learned from reviewing the player activism of the “Maple refugee” incident and applies the insights to the European video game industry and commercial context. The Maple Refugee incident was perhaps one of the most disruptive video game incidents that occurred in South Korea in recent years. It saw tens of thousands of Korean players from the game Maple Story (Nexon, 2003) mobilised in unprecedented online and offline protests in Spring 2021. Together with players from other free-to-play (F2P) games, Maple Story players rallied against the industry norms of monetising with loot boxes and the industry self-regulatory approach to probability disclosures to address potential harms. This culminated in the social phenomenon of the proxy activism method of ’truck protests,’ rallies of crowdfunded rented trucks displaying protest messages instead of people mass-gathering in public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the English timeline of the incident collated by Park et al. (2023), we dive deeper into the case with a multidisciplinary group of experts from game studies, law, and human-computer interaction and highlight various issues present in this case: the regulation of loot boxes and probability disclosures, the social pillars of player activism, player trust and theorycrafting, and game production. The paper contributes to the deepening of the industry’s understanding of F2P game business while diversifying the Western-centric discourse of the game research landscape by calling for further cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary inquiries into current video game issues

The Many Faces of Monetisation: Understanding the Diversity and Extremity of Player Spending in Mobile Games via Massive-scale Transactional Analysis

With the rise of microtransactions, particularly in the mobile games industry, there has been ongoing concern that games reliant on these obtain substantial revenue from a small proportion of heavily involved individuals, to an extent that may be financially burdensome to these individuals. Yet despite substantive grey literature and speculation on this topic, there is little robust data available. We explore the revenue distribution in microtransaction-based mobile games using a transactional dataset of $4.7B in in-game spending drawn from 69,144,363 players of 2,873 mobile games over the course of 624 days. We find diverse revenue distributions in mobile games, ranging from a “uniform” cluster, in which all spenders invest approximately similar amounts, to “hyper-Pareto” games, in which a large proportion of revenue (approximately 38$66,285 each in the 624 days under evaluation in the most extreme case. We discuss implications for future studies on links between gaming and wellbeing

No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming in one segment of the video games industry

open access articleGovernments around the world are considering regulatory measures to reduce young people’s time spent on digital devices, particularly video games. This raises the question of whether proposed regulatory measures would be effective. Since the early 2000s, the Chinese government has been enacting regulations to directly restrict young people’s playtime. In November 2019, it limited players aged under 18 to 1.5 hours of daily playtime and 3 hours on public holidays. Using telemetry data on over seven billion hours of playtime provided by a stakeholder from the video games industry, we found no credible evidence for overall reduction in the prevalence of heavy playtime following the implementation of regulations: individual accounts became 1.14 times more likely to play heavily in any given week (95% confidence interval 1.139–1.141). This falls below our preregistered smallest effect size of interest (2.0) and thus is not interpreted as a practically meaningful increase. Results remain robust across a variety of sensitivity analyses, including an analysis of more recent (2021) adjustments to playtime regulation. This casts doubt on the effectiveness of such state-controlled playtime mandates

The Imaging of Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease

Diagnosis of hip joint pathology remains a serious problem in childhood and adolescence. A wide range of pathologies—including dysplastic, dystrophic, inflammatory, oncological and post-traumatic diseases of the musculoskeletal system—leads to the advancement of imaging methods and techniques. Legg-Calve-Perthes disease (LCPD) is a common cause of hip pain in children that may be initially clinically and radiographically difficult to diagnose Radiography of the pelvis in two views (anteroposterior and Lauenstein) is the main method of diagnosing aseptic necrosis. Destructive changes of the femoral head and neck of the femur are clearly determined. However, the presence of X-ray negative patterns at the first stage of the disease and the impossibility of visualizing all the anatomical structures induce us to improve the diagnostic algorithm of this difficult pathological process

Ultrasound of Acute Appendicitis in the Admission Room of a Multidisciplinary Surgical Hospital

Ultrasound (US) for diagnosing acute appendicitis (AA) and its complications in the admission room may be used as a primary diagnostic method in urgent patients. A total of 180 adult patients underwent US for suspected appendicitis; these results showed high possibilities in pathology screening and differential diagnosis from similar clinical diseases. The accuracy of US in detecting AA with obvious clinical findings and typical position is 100%, but in retrocecal and retroperitoneal forms, it decreases to 84%. With our algorithm of the right iliac and localized pain regions, US scanning optimizes the screening of patients with suspected AA presented in the admission room

A picture of medically assisted reproduction activities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe

STUDY QUESTION: How did coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) impact on medically assisted reproduction (MAR) services in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic (March to May 2020)? SUMMARY ANSWER: MAR services, and hence treatments for infertile couples, were stopped in most European countries for a mean of 7 weeks. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: With the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, non-urgent medical care was reduced by local authorities to preserve health resources and maintain social distancing. Furthermore, ESHRE and other societies recommended to postpone ART pregnancies as of 14 March 2020. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: A structured questionnaire was distributed in April among the ESHRE Committee of National Representatives, followed by further information collection through email. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: The information was collected through the questionnaire and afterwards summarised and aligned with data from the European Centre for Disease Control on the number of COVID-19 cases per country. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: By aligning the data for each country with respective epidemiological data, we show a large variation in the time and the phase in the epidemic in the curve when MAR/ART treatments were suspended and restarted. Similarly, the duration of interruption varied. Fertility preservation treatments and patient supportive care for patients remained available during the pandemic. LARGE SCALE DATA: N/A. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Data collection was prone to misinterpretation of the questions and replies, and required further follow-up to check the accuracy. Some representatives reported that they, themselves, were not always aware of the situation throughout the country or reported difficulties with providing single generalised replies, for instance when there were regional differences within their country. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The current article provides a basis for further research of the different strategies developed in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Such conclusions will be invaluable for health authorities and healthcare professionals with respect to future similar situations.peer-reviewe