Interview with Matt on his Gambling Research
Added 2024-08-14 05:23:53 +0000 UTCFor those of you who want to hear Matt being responsible and talking about his gambling research, today is your lucky day!
Here he is on the Outside the Screen Podcast.
Paper discussed: Hing et al paper: N Hing, M Browne, M Rockloff, L Lole, & AMT Russell, ‘Gamblification: risks of digital gambling games to adolescents’ (2022) 6 Lancet Child and Adolescent Health 357-359; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00124-9
Comments
Sim Tower, what a game
David Noble
2024-08-16 19:07:22 +0000 UTCVery disappointed that Matt Browne PhD did not grace us with his Paw Patrol review. The episode description is close to false advertising 🥲
mobitobi
2024-08-16 14:01:26 +0000 UTCNice to see active in the chat again :) The parasocial relationships don‘t build themselves 💙
mobitobi
2024-08-15 23:43:33 +0000 UTCHadn’t seen it, but that site looks excellent thanks Niall!
Guruspod 2
2024-08-15 21:56:14 +0000 UTCHopefully we’ll see some movement. Have submitted two big reports to NSW and VIC governments, both focused on the scale of impact from gambling to the community. Hopefully they’ll help a little.
Guruspod 2
2024-08-15 21:55:05 +0000 UTCBrilliant comment, thanks mate. Yeah, your experience gels 100% with our research on the A/V aspects of slot machines etc. One really good trick is “losses disguised as wins”. This is where you “win”, but you’ve actually spent more for the spin than the win amount, so you’re net negative. But all the winning A/V sounds and animations go off. It’s almost a textbook case of reinforcement conditioning, where you pair the learned and unlearned stimuli, and after a while people respond to the unlearned stimuli as if the reward was actually delivered. Like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the ring of the bell. So yeah, exploitative and deceptive. Much like our gurus!
Guruspod 2
2024-08-15 21:53:38 +0000 UTCHaha I’m genuinely not sure what Lancet-tier this journal occupies. As everybody ought to know by now, I’m already a Full Professor so I don’t have to worry about these things anymore ;p
Guruspod 2
2024-08-15 21:47:58 +0000 UTCIt’s “OK”! It’s certainly connected to gamblification, but in a setting where nobody’s in danger of losing all their money or getting addicted, it’s a pretty anodyne motivational trick. Ideally of course, we’d try for more intrinsic motivation, but to get people going, using some tricks like that seems fine to me
Guruspod 2
2024-08-15 21:45:07 +0000 UTCOutside The Screen is also a song and album by a band called Needlepoint ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Russell Halberdt
2024-08-14 15:52:37 +0000 UTCThanks for sharing this. There has been a trend in pedagogy towards gamification to keep students engaged in learning. I’d be curious to know if Professor Browne has thoughts on this.
Linda Sears
2024-08-14 13:04:26 +0000 UTCMy Guru publishes in the real Lancet 🙄 (Just kidding, super stoked to listen to it. Title already seems interesting)
mobitobi
2024-08-14 12:06:00 +0000 UTCVery interesting talk Matt. I work as a sound designer in the games industry, and I've seen the gamblification of gaming go from a very controversial practice, to very much accepted as form of generating revenue. While there is still consumer pushback against these practices, they tend to be with the older generation, and especially so in people who either don't play games much anymore, or only play older games. There is a perception that younger gamers do not see these practices as new, they see them as normal. Early in my career I was approached by gambling companies to create audio content for gambling machines. Like quiz machines, or fruit machines in pubs. I decided it wasn't an area I wanted to be involved with. But, I did watch a few videos and read articles on sound design for gambling. There is a big focus on positive feedback, and creating satisfying audio that contributes to the dopamine rush of acquiring rewards, be they monetary, or manufactured desire. There is of course similar ideas throughout all game sound design, it's important that the player feel rewarded for certain actions, and for 'good' things to be encouraged, that drives the gameplay loop. But, I have also seen this employed to a very high degree with regards to in-game purchases, rewards, lootboxes, etc. There is *a lot* of effort put into making these sounds feel hyperreal, and highly rewarding. The quality of the sound is marked, due to it's scarcity. That level of detail and complexity of the sound is often related to the cost of the item, meaning the only way to play that 'high level' sound, is to purchase the highest value item. Very interesting stuff. On it's own gaming companies pivoting to different models of compensation for the developers and investors is not necessarily always bad. But, the focus on gamblification, and the active pursuit of 'whales', single users that spend 10s or 100s of thousands on a single games in-game purchases, is a damaging, exploitative, and predatory practice.
Matt
2024-08-14 11:58:49 +0000 UTCEnjoyed the interview, Matt.
Shane Partington
2024-08-14 07:22:42 +0000 UTCvery timely for Aussie political scene
peta austen
2024-08-14 07:05:48 +0000 UTCMatt may be aware of this already but there's a site that tracks various aspects of highly addictive games https://www.darkpattern.games/
Níall Faughnan
2024-08-14 06:46:55 +0000 UTC
