Damages the monetization of video games for children – and what does Australia do about it? | Gaming

OIn the past decade, Dean has accumulated a healthy collection of video games, from Smash hits to cult classics. His digital library is like a modern blockbuster, which is easily accessible with just one or two clicks. But his son Sam has eyes for just one video game: Roblox, the Virtual Universe Slash video game, which is one of the most popular on the planet.

The company reports that more than 97 million people register with Roblox every day. Around 40% of them are like Sam under the age of 13. In 2024, Roblox achieved sales of USD 5.6 billion (USD 3.6 billion), mainly by purchases from “Robux”, its virtual currency, with the average user fell around $ 25 per month.

While using Roblox through children in relation to bullying, inappropriate and even abusive content, a lot of attention was paid, a new report has caused concerns about the effects of video game monealization on children.

In the meantime, some experts claim that the current classification system of Australia is not far enough to help children players for children, and their parents navigate confusing monetization systems.

Dark design patterns that are supposed to steer the behavior of the player have been examined in two new reports of Australian researchers. Such functions encourage users to spend money, frequently disguise their value or use confusing virtual currencies and can be difficult for children to understand completely.

In a recent report by Monash University and the Think Tank, the Research Center for Consumer Policy (CPRC), which focused on players aged 18 and over, made the games developed with dark patterns almost inevitable. Out of 800 respondents, 83% of “negative effects” of these patterns and 46% had a kind of financial disadvantages. More than a quarter said they felt under pressure to buy something, and 30% had spent more for a game than they intended.

A separate new study by researchers from the University of Sydney has tried to investigate how children's-die a fifth of the gaming population perceives dye mechanisms and how they can ensure that video games are more adequate for them.

“There is a tendency that the children's digital media in the media lead to children in the areas of digital media and lead to political decisions that have not taken into account the actual experiences of children,” says Taylor Hardwick, the main author of the study.

Hardwick and her team conducted interviews with 22 children between the ages of 7 and 14 and their parents. Each child received a debit card of 20 US dollars and said it could spend as they want – they just had to explain what they bought and why.

Eighteen of the 22 children in the cohort played Roblox and 12 to spend their entire $ 20 in the game and buy Robux. Another five children used it in other digital games such as Call of Duty, Fallout 76 and Minecraft.

Children in the study stated that they were the most concerned that Feing was misleading, frustrated or regrettable about their purchases, especially if they lost access to accounts or objects without warning or recourse.

Sam's father says Sam has spent around 400 US dollars for Roblox annually in the past four years. A few months ago he felt depressed.

Sam had used part of his Robux to buy a “skin” – essentially a digital costume – from Godzilla in an extremely popular Roblox game called Kaiju Universe. But when he signed in the game, the skin had disappeared without warning. Toho, the copyright owner for the Godzilla license, had closed the game and left Sam behind without digital skin. He received no reimbursement from Roblox.

However, it is the examination of “random reward mechanisms” (RRMS) that highlight the researchers of Sydney University as one of the main problems. RRMS and prey boxes offer players the opportunity to achieve a mysterious object in a lottery or Lucky-Dip style “Draw”.

While the children “accepted” in the study that RRM's part of the gaming experience was not, many didn't like it.

“Children do not have a sufficient understanding of the probability and the risk of effectively navigating these aspects of their digital game, even if they can speak in the percentage of the game,” the authors wrote. “RRMS and similar playful mechanics are harmful and are not appropriate for children.”

You recommend removing RRMS completely, removing access to reimbursements, greater protection for children's accounts as well as greater transparency and flexibility in virtual currencies.

Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at the always University, said the study was interesting, but pointed out that it used a small sample size. He was also not convinced of the definition of the researchers of “damage”; Although children feel cheated or cheated, he suggests that the monetization aspects they encounter are more of anger than damage.

“I am glad that researchers actually ask children what they think about experience,” he says, “but I think we should be a little more careful about the word” harmful “.”

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AUstralia has tried to prevent children from monetized RRMs by entering into force a new classification scheme in September 2024. Now every game that contains RRMS or loot boxes has to be classified with M and not recommended for children under the age of 15.

However, the new rules only apply to newly classified games, and older games did not have to update their classification – unless The developer updates the game.

Leon Xiao, a researcher at City University Hong Kong, who examines the regulation of prey boxes, says that Australia has “a problem with the implementation and not a problem with the law itself”. He claims that some video games have been misjudged after the new legislation has been initiated and suggests that the intention of the law of better clarifying consumers failed.

Preliminary research by Marcus Carter, a co-author of the University of Sydney, suggest that around 20% of the 100 best mobile games in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store do not meet Australian regulations. Hardwick and Carter recently wrote that the new guidelines of Australia “do not fit”.

With its mountains of user -generated content, Roblox is a main example for the confusion of the reviews. Xiao argues: “Roblox should now be rated with M or not for players under the age of 15.” However, the game is rated in the Google Play Store with PG.

In the Apple App Store app, the regional age valuation is 15+. The latter also contains a global age assessment of Apple from 12+.

A Roblox spokesman said Guardian Australia that the creators should use his guidelines -API to ensure that they are compliant in all jurisdiction. An update that was sent to developers in September 2024 would not make paid random objects available for Australian users.

“As a content platform created by users, we offer our developer community tools, information and guidelines that apply to aspects of gameplay within your games and experiences, including the latest classification update in Australia in connection with paid random objects,” said a Roblox spokesman.

“We take measures to report on content that guidelines do not follow or do not use our tools properly to meet local compliance requirements in Australia.”

The company states that parents receive information about the buying behavior of their children and that there are no billing information as delay and warnings – at the first transaction – that users spend real money. Parents are also alerted in e -mails about high expenditure behavior.

“Our parental controls enable parents and caretakers to get spending notifications for the expenses of their child in Roblox and to set monthly limits for their child's account,” said the spokesman.

According to Hardwick, monetization is difficult for “busy, under -related and resenting” parents to navigate. She says that they do not receive the tools to understand and tackle their children's editions in the game.

Dean does his best to end this trend with Sam and discuss with his son what Sam outsourses his Robux and why. He says that Sam is still sore over the godzilla skin, but has passed to a garden game where he can spend Robux for buying new seeds – and where Sam assures him that it does not affect prey boxes.

* Names have been changed