The thought of gambling in video games might lead most people’s minds straight to online casinos, but it’s a concept that takes many more forms than that. In fact, in some ways, it’s something that’s deeply ingrained into the medium in a wide variety of ways – it might just be that not every iteration fits your preconceptions.
Some examples of it will be the type of gameplay and structure of the loop – as with online casinos – but others might be more internal examples that take place within the world of the game itself.
1. Loot Boxes
To people who are familiar with the gaming landscape, the controversy of loot boxes is one that they’ll be familiar with. This is often a feature of multiplayer games, and it’s a type of microtransaction that allows players to spend money on a pack of randomized items. Due to the fact that players are likely trying to get one particular item, the encouragement to spend money again and again to get to it has stoked debates about whether or not this constitutes gambling – with certain countries taking legal action based on that.
2. Online Casinos
Pushing that impulse even further leads to games that are just digital recreations of casinos. A platform that allows players access to online jackpot games, like those found if you click here, as well as familiar favorites like blackjack, poker or roulette, can mean that they don’t have to go to a physical venue in order to access these kinds of experiences anymore. This, coupled with the fact that they can be accessed from a smartphone, makes them both incredibly convenient and an example of mobile gaming – an easy, short-form experience when the player has some time to kill.
3. In-Game Gambling
When it comes to games like Red Dead Redemption and its 2018 sequel (as well as other games), players are given the opportunity to engage with entirely digital simulations of games like blackjack. The aim here isn’t primarily to play the game itself; it’s to immerse yourself more in the world – play as the character sitting down in an old western saloon and leisurely playing a hand of cards. To that end, there’s no way to actually put down real money on these games. Instead, you’re playing with the in-game currency and using it as a way to simply get yourself more absorbed in the world.
4. Gameplay-Related Risks
Sometimes, the gambling in question doesn’t have anything to do with money – not even virtual money. Instead, it’s much more about taking a weighted risk in the game itself. This might be seen most regularly with rogue-lite games, where the structure of the game involves playing a short game again and again with different randomized elements to get different results. If a player is having an especially good run, for instance, they might be incentivized to try and improve that run as much as possible before they take any kind of risk so that they don’t jeopardize it completely.