Martin Beneš Charles University, Faculty of Education, Department of Pedagogy, Magdalény Rettigové 4, Praha 1, 116 39 martin.beness@gmail.com
I dare say that our society is getting into a new era of gambling involving minors. The worlds of computer games and online casinos (eventually also betting portals) are con-nected here. It is complicated to distinguish the game where the actual gameplay has nothing to do with the betting, but the acquisition of add-ons in the form of various skins is a glaring example of gambling.
How far will developers go after their way to profit? I believe it is possible that in a few years it will be common to buy chests in a majority of games.
Terminology
Gambling addiction is defined by frequent and repeated playing of hazardous games.
These activities dominate gamblers’ life; interests and hobbies slowly disappear. Gam-blers risk losing their job, falling into debt or even start to commit criminal activities to get funds to compensate for losses.
Most players describe a strong craving for the game, which is very difficult to resist. The thoughts of playing appear most often when they are somehow stressed.
The social consequences of pathological gambling can be: getting poor, distortion of family relationships and a schism of personal life (Nešpor, 1999, p. 16).
According to Nešpor, the most dangerous thing about gambling is the possibility of win-ning a prize, whether (it is) real or just the one dreamed. Gamblers often describe that the problems began shortly after some winnings. It is the winning that raises the craving (a strong desire for a gambling game) (2006, p. 10).
The term gambling is often confused with the term gaming. Reith (2007 as cited in Banks, 2014, p. 3) states that gaming has been associated with entertainment and lei-sure time and is therefore very often used in the gambling industry instead of gambling, which is generally understood negatively and evokes ideas related to the loss of financial resources as a result of gambling.
Game related terminology may vary from game to game, even on websites the informa-tion may not be whole.
The most mentioned term in this paper will probably be Steam, the online platform for distribution of games and software, created and maintained by Valve Corporation to dis-tribute patches for games and later even whole games. First game disdis-tributed via Steam platform was Half Life1. These days it is also used as a social network and chat application for gamers (Valve Corporation, n.d.-a).
1 Counter Strike is a computer game published in 1999 by Valve Corporation via their Steam platform as a Half Life modification. It’s well known as one of the most popular esport games until it’s full replacement on the competitive scene with Counter Strike: Global Offensive in 2012. There were many events connected with Counter Strike, such as national tournaments and world tournaments, which could be compared to any other big sport events (Valve Corporation, n.d.-a).
There are more online platforms for online game distribution, for example Battle.net, UPlay and Origin.
An important gaming term is an inventory, which has been used in the first com-puter games created. The meaning has changed over time. In the past, inventory meant a list of all items the player has in a game session or a save slot. In that case, items had an impact on gameplay and they were a necessary part of the game. After the release of Steam inventory, the meaning of the word “inventory” gained a new meaning. The items I want to talk about are no longer bonded to the game save slot or session.They usually do not have any impact on gameplay. The old meaning of inventory remained next to the new meaning in some games. For this paper, the term inventory will be taken to mean virtual in-game items, which do not affect gameplay and have only cosmetics purposes (such as clothes/weaponry colour or a whole dif-ferent 3D model).
Steam has its community market for registered users with verified credit cards. Users can use it to buy/sell in-game items, trading cards, profile backgrounds and emoticons from/to other users. Each in-game item is purchased or sold for real money. Steam com-munity market is not a free service. There is a Steam market fee (=5% of the requested price) and the game specific fee which is usually around 10% of the requested price. For example, if you are buying an item for 100 €, the seller will get only 85 € (Valve Corpora-tion, n.d.-b).
The last thing I want to talk about are Steam badges. They go hand in hand with in-game items. Steam users earn from one to three Steam trading cards after they make a pur-chase in the game. After collecting 5 or more (depends on the game) different cards, users can transform a collection of cards into a badge. Each claimed badge will add ex-perience points to the user Steam account. Most badges can be obtained more than once – users upgrade them to better ones (Each upgrade is awarded with experience for Steam profile level). Badges cannot be traded or sold (Valve Corporation, n.d.-c).
In-game items
In-game items are implemented in plenty of games (most of them are published via Steam).
As I mentioned before, they change the visual part of the game (for example there is a game character, and you can change the colour or the appearance of his or her clothes, armour, hair, tools or weapons).
Steam users can buy and sell those items on the Steam market (Valve Corporation, n.d.-b).
Users do not trade items 1:1 in most cases, the price of the in-game items starts at 0,03 € and can go up to 10 000 € or more. The leading price determining factor is supply and de-mand. The approximate price indicator is the item quality. For example, the game Coun-ter Strike: Global Offensive has 5 item quality categories called exCoun-terior (See table 1).
Table 1. Percentage of in-game item drop rate per quality (category) in Counter Strike: Global Offensive.
Exterior and price data are retrieved from CSGOStash.com (RedQueen, n.d.). Drop rate data are retrieved from CSGOArray.
blogspot.com (CS GO Case Chances and Knife Drop Rate, 2014).
Exterior (quality) Price in Euros Drop rate
Exceedingly Rare ★ 50–10 000 0.45 %
Covert 2–2 000 1.01 %
Classified 0.40–1 000 3.30 %
Restricted 0.03–300 14.98 %
Mil-Spec 0.03–300 69.94 %
Industrial grade 0.03–10
-Customer grade 0.03–10
-Contraband 700 - 1200
-Prices decrease with lower quality and the differences in prices between qualities can be significant. In-game items are called “skins” by most players.