Shifting Meanings of Lootboxes in Western Culture

FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES

Master Thesis

BC. ONDŘEJ KLÍMA

Supervisor: doc. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D.

Department of Sociology Programme Sociologie

Brno 2021

SHIFTING MEANINGS OF LOOTBOXES IN WESTERN CULTURE

Bibliografický záznam

Autor: Bc. Ondřej Klíma Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykova univerzita Chyba! Nenalezen zdroj odkazů. Název práce: Shifting Meanings of Lootboxes in Western Culture Studijní program: N-SOC Sociologie Studijní obor: Sociologie Vedoucí práce: doc. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D. Rok: 2021 Počet stran: 92 Klíčová slova: gaming theory, lootbox, loot box, societalization, civil sphere, gaming sphere, cultural sociology, thick description, surprise mechanics, social crisis

2 SHIFTING MEANINGS OF LOOTBOXES IN WESTERN CULTURE

Bibliographic record

Author: Bc. Ondřej Klíma Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University Department of Sociology Title of Thesis: Shifting Meanings of Lootboxes in Western Culture Degree Programme: N-SOC Sociologie Field of Study: Sociologie Supervisor: doc. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D. Year: 2021 Number of Pages: 92 Keywords: gaming theory, lootbox, loot box, societalization, civil sphere, gaming sphere, cultural sociology, thick description, surprise mechanics, social crisis

3 SHIFTING MEANINGS OF LOOTBOXES IN WESTERN CULTURE

Abstrakt

V této práci se zabývám kulturní analýzou lootboxů skrze lootboxovou kontroverzi z roku 2017 a její vývoj až do konce roku 2020. V první části se zabývám rešerší literatury ohledně teorie gamingu a teorie lootboxů. Poté vysvětlím model societalizace a teorie civilní sféry od Jeffreyho Ale- xandra. Následně představím můj dataset online článků a také metodo- logii hustého popisu a interpretativní analýzy. Poté provedu analýzu lo- otboxové kontroverze za pomocí modelu societalizace. Na závěr zhodno- tím, že lootboxová kontroverze byla sociální krizí.

Počet znaků práce: 148 110

4 SHIFTING MEANINGS OF LOOTBOXES IN WESTERN CULTURE

Abstract

I deal with the cultural analysis of the lootbox by looking at the lootbox controversy from 2017 and how it continued until the end of 2020. First, I provide a comprehensive summary of the literature on the gaming theory and theory of lootboxes. Second, I explain in-depth the model of societalization by Jeffrey Alexander and his theory of the civil sphere. Third, I present my dataset of articles and the methodology of thick description and interpretative analysis. Fourth, I analyze the lootbox crisis using the model of societalization. Lastly, I conclude that lootbox controversy was a social crisis.

SHIFTING MEANINGS OF LOOTBOXES IN WESTERN CULTURE

Declaration of Honor

I declare that I have independently prepared the presented master thesis: Shifting Meanings of Lootboxes in Western Culture and that I did not use any literature or resources other than those indicated. Verbatim or non-verbatim citations are all marked, and their origin is specified.

Brno, January 10, 2021 ...... Bc. Ondřej Klíma

Acknowledgement

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor doc. Bernadette Nadya Ja- worsky, Ph.D. She consistently allowed this thesis to be my own work, but gently steered me in the right direction whenever I needed it. She always found the time to offer helpful advice while also being critical to help me improve my thesis towards my vision. Thank you.

I also must express my gratitude to my parents for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis. I also want to thank all my friends who helped me proofread and who suggested even the small changes. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you.

8 TABLE OF CONTENT

Table of Content

List of Images 11

Glossary and abbreviations 12

1 Introduction 13

2 Theoretical Framework 17 2.1 The Gaming, Gamers and Lootbox Research ...... 17 2.2 The Civil Sphere and Non-Civil Institutions ...... 22 2.3 The Societalization of Social Problems...... 23 2.4 The Gaming Sphere ...... 27

3 Methodology 32 3.1 Data Selection and Data Collection ...... 32 3.2 Thick Description and Interpretative Analysis ...... 34

4 The Societalization of Lootboxes 37 4.1 T1 – The Stable State ...... 39 4.2 T2 – The Beginning of Societalization ...... 43 4.3 T3 – The Regulatory Interventions ...... 47 4.4 T4 – The Backlash from the Non-Civil Institutions ...... 52 4.5 T5 – Social Repair or Stand-off ...... 58

5 Conclusion 64

Sources 69

Appendix A Partial transcript HC 1846 78

Appendix B Guiding Timeline 80

Appendix C Lootbox GIF interpretation 81

Index 89

LIST OF IMAGES

List of Images

Image 1 A poster campaign on Reddit.com in the protest against lootboxes...... 42

11 GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS

Glossary and abbreviations

ME:SoW – Abbreviation for the videogame: Middle-Earth: Shadow of War EA – Electronic Arts; videogame publisher IFPI – International Federation of the Phonographic In- dustry CET – Central European Time UK – The United Kingdom US – The United States of America BGA – Dutch Betting and Gaming Act NHS – United Kingdom National Health Service Covid-19 – Coronavirus disease that started in 2019 ESRB – The Entertainment Software Rating Board

12 INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction

Gaming is no longer just a pastime activity of a few. The gaming industry grew over the past decades into a giant, providing not only entertainment for billions of people but also created new job opportunities as gaming became a profession. According to the IFPI, Motion Pictures As- sociation, Digital Entertainment Group, and New Zoo (Malim, 2018), the gaming industry will (even more) overshadow the film and music industry by $258,3 billion by 2023, and it was already in the lead with $101 billion over both film ($49 billion) and music ($16 billion) industries in 2016. Furthermore, like other big entertainment industries, the gaming industry is shifting from a buy-own model towards a “live service” model. Subscription systems and microtransactions are providing a constant stream of revenue as opposed to just buying a game once and playing it for free. This focus on live-services subscription systems and microtransactions also created a massive spike in revenue in the gaming industry. NetEase (Knives Out), Activision Blizzard (Candy Crush, Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft), EA (Apex Legends, FIFA1, Madden), Nexon (Dungeon Fighter Online), and Epic Games (Fortnite) earned over $16 billion from microtransactions alone in 2019, and they are just the top 5 gaming companies that have a public earning record (Strickland, 2020).

There is a big difference, though. You probably have a subscription, such as Netflix, Spotify, or even Microsoft Office. These subscriptions cost dozens of dollars per month and give you access to digital libraries full of music, films, and serials. We can see similar subscription systems in the gaming industry that let you access digital libraries full of videogames. Where the gaming industry deviates is the use of microtransactions. Imagine that you would have to buy a “Tyrion Lannister character pack,” which would include this popular character from Game of Thrones into your serial, and without it, he would not appear. Or maybe you were not satisfied with the ending of Season 8 and would like to buy a different conclusion for just $9,99. What if you purchased the “resistance to poi- soning bundle” so Joffrey Baratheon would survive? These are examples

1 FIFA refers here and throughout the thesis to the game FIFA not the Fédération In- ternationale de Football Association

13 INTRODUCTION of microtransactions. They might seem absurd in the context of serials, but they are common practice in the gaming industry. Microtransactions allow gaming companies to cut and resell content but also may offer gamers the possibility to buy advantages over others. This created a cultural tension in what I call the “gaming sphere” regarding fairness and other norms, but also tensions between the gaming and the civil sphere. These tensions surrounding microtransactions, which I will now briefly illustrate, are at the center of the thesis.

The first microtransaction (a fancy armor for a horse) was introduced into the critically very well acclaimed and trendy game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006 (Ransom-Wiley, 2006). Since then, we saw a rise of microtransactions in videogames, generating a considerable part of the revenue for gaming publishers but also concerns for “fair play,” “buying power,” and “compensation for the lack of skill with real-world money” (Williams, 2017). But these concerns were mainly what Alexan- der (2006) would call the intra-sphere problems – meaning that they were contained within the boundaries of a gaming sphere. Everything changed in 2017 when the question: “Are microtransactions gambling?” was added to the concerns over microtransactions.

Research into microtransactions is rising in popularity since the public outrage over the monetization in the Star Wars: Battlefront II (competitive videogame) in 2017. The main question contemporary re- searchers from informatics, psychology, and economic studies try to answer is: “Are microtransactions in videogames gambling?” As a cultural sociologist, I will be approaching the topic by asking a different question: “Why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis?” I want to bring the cultural perspective to this (so far) primarily quantitative field of study and explore the shifting meanings of microtransactions in videogames and how the tension between “Gaming” and civil spheres is being resolved.

14 INTRODUCTION

To do so, I will first introduce contemporary gaming and lootbox2 theories alongside my main framework theory of societalization from Jeffrey Alexander (2018) and his theory of the civil sphere (Alexander, 2006). I will then describe what I call the “Gaming sphere” and all the entities and agents it consists of – to help the reader to ease more into the gaming jargon and to clarify inconsistent labels that are used throughout the gaming discourse. In the third chapter, I will explain the methodology behind the collection of my dataset of articles and how did I select them. I will also explain the methodology behind thick description and how did I do the interpretative analysis in the following chapters. I would like to recommend to the reader to quickly glance at the glossary and abbreviation chapter as well as the Appendix B timeline as both will help them to follow my thoughts throughout my analysis in chapter four. After explaining the theory and methodology in chapters two and three, I proceed with the analysis of the lootbox controversy using the model of societalization (Alexander, 2018) and the “gaming sphere.” The analysis will unfold in accordance with the model time states (T1 to T5), which means that there will be chronological discrep- ancies as I will analyze four countries simultaneously: Belgium, Nether- lands, the United States3, and the United Kingdom. My analysis thus follows the time states (Alexander, 2018) of the societalization process, which have different time frames for each country. Part of the analysis will also be a thick description and interpretation of the “Oral evidence: Immersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846” – UK congress hearing that was ordered by the House of Commons. I will finish with the conclusion that the lootbox controversy from 2017 was a social crisis in Bel- gium, the Netherlands, and the UK but failed to start the process of societalization in Hawaii. I also elaborate on the importance of the “gaming

2 I will not describe what a lootbox is in a great detail as my focus is on the lootbox controversy itself, but I invite the reader to refer to the appendix C for an iconographical analysis of the lootbox as a material symbol full of meanings with focus on the gaming sphere. 3 I will be talking only about Hawaii as it was the only state from the US, I was able to find any news articles covering any reaction to the lootbox controversy. Thus, the US may not be fully represented and could be considered a country that remained in T1 since the lootbox controversy remained intra-sphere social drama in the rest of the states apart from Hawaii.

15 INTRODUCTION sphere” as a concept for analyzing gaming via the lens of the strong program in cultural sociology.

But before we delve into the lootbox controversy in question, I want to acknowledge some things first. I am a gamer, although not a profes- sional anymore, and I still have ties and active connections to the gaming sphere. But I am a researcher also, and I hereby acknowledge my possible personal bias that could be reflected in my research, and I have taken all the necessary steps to prevent it. Thus, please consider the choice of a possible protagonist and antagonist in this sociological interpretation as pure literary (there must be the good and bad guy) and empirical choice (as news outlets took the side of the Public and only minority of them defended the game publishers), not my personal one. Now, without further ado, let us explore the lootbox controversy in detail through the analysis of the lootbox controversy that happened in 2017.

16 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2 Theoretical Framework

I will now introduce the research on the gaming culture and the lootbox, followed by a brief look at the research in the fields of psychology, politics, and ethics. I will start with a quick introduction to the history of videogames and how they evolved into the videogames of the 21st century. After that, I will introduce contemporary gaming research and how it approaches the study of gaming culture. Next, I will introduce the theory of societalization by Jeffrey Alexander (2018), and I will also briefly introduce Alexander’s (2006) civil sphere theory. Lastly, I will describe what the “gaming sphere” is based on the civil sphere theory (ibid.), gaming culture theory, and my conclusions from the analysis chapter 4 are, and my own observations as a gamer and actor from this “gaming sphere.”

2.1 The Gaming, Gamers and Lootbox Research

I have selected the scientific papers and books for my theory review based on two separate searches on Google Scholar. Both searches were done on studies from the year 2000 and onwards so I could capture the contemporary research as I am focusing on the developments of videogames in the 21st century. The first one used the keywords: “gaming theory,” “gaming culture,” “videogame theory,” “videogame culture,” “gaming sphere,” “videogames,” and “games.” The second search used the keywords: “lootbox,” “lootboxes,” “loot box,” “loot boxes,” “gaming,” and “gambling.” I have then selected the first ten studies from each search based on the relevance and citation score Google Scholar uses for ranking the search results. Since November 2017, there was an increase in interest concerning lootboxes and gambling mechanics in video games from a whole set of different perspectives covering the fields of political and psychological studies. These fields were prominently present in the second search, and I have trimmed the second ten initial studies to just four because their conclusion about lootboxes being gambling or unethical were similar and since I was not able to find more sociological papers on the subject of lootboxes. Thus, I decided to focus mainly on the gaming culture in my review and describe what was researched by other fields on lootboxes only briefly – as a baseline of what a lootbox is from a political and psychological perspective. I have also discarded economic studies as they focused on the macroeconomic effect of lootboxes, which is

17 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK not my field of interest as I deal with the meanings of lootboxes and how they are experienced rather than just evaluate their monetary potentials.

Let us start with what gaming culture is, but first, let me quickly address why I will focus on the research from the 21st century while video games already emerged as a form of entertainment for kids and adults alike in the 1970 (Whalen and Taylor, 2008). The accessibility of videogames on a variety of devices such as smartphones and tablets allowed the spread of videogames from PC’s and gaming consoles (ibid.) as they grew more powerful to handle more advanced graphical processing. This spread meant that, for example, in the US, more than 150 million people (Entertainment Software Association, 2015) are “gamers” - people engaging in the act of playing a videogame. When looking at the US households through this gaming lens – four out of five households have at least one gaming device (ibid.) – be it a gaming capable PC or a console or a smartphone or a tablet. So, while videogames emerged in 1970, the accessibility to them was poor compared to the 21st century (Whalen and Taylor, 2008), and that is the time where research into the gaming culture saw the rise (Cade and Gates, 2016). Dini (2012) even argues that videogames are now a pervasive part of the (broad) culture and that gamers have a culture of their own. Apart from the rise in popularity thanks to the greater accessibility of gaming-capable devices, there was also an emergence of a new type of videogames that helped propel them to the massive numbers they are at now. This evolution from single- player games to gaming experiences of living in self-contained worlds and virtual societies (Young, 2009) started in late 1990. These self-contained worlds brought a social factor into the mix – allowing “gamers” to experience living in a virtual world of their choosing. As is apparent from Taylor’s (2006) ethnography of EverQuest in his book Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture or in Jakobsson’s (2007) study of the Smash Brothers console clubs – these virtual worlds appear in experiences and meaning as real-world does to the gamers that are involved within them. Hand and Moore (2006) concluded in their paper “Commu- nity, identity and digital games” that videogames are unlike any other digital media in the sense that videogames combine communication and entertainment into a mix that influences individual identities and their formation in social interaction.

18 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

To bring this theory closer to my work, one of the games in the analysis chapter is FIFA. FIFA is a football simulator that supplies this virtual world of football management of your virtual teams – allowing you to “be like a real” manager in charge of your own team, buying players, and winning championships. Thus, the engagement (living the experience of a virtual world that is similar to the experiences we have in the real world) that videogames provide now is a very important aspect if one wants to understand the gaming culture. This brings us to the question of understanding the gaming culture. Elmezeny and Wimmer (2018) argue that gaming cultures are neither totally national nor totally global – meaning that the gaming culture of FIFA “gamers” in Germany shares some characteristics with FIFA “gamers” in the UK (ibid.) They criticize Shaw (2010) when she investigated the definition of game culture and provided several based on who plays what and how (Elmezeny and Wim- mer, 2018). I would argue that Shaw (2010) provided a comprehensive literature review that puts culture in the spotlight as she looks on videogames culturally, not (as all the previous studies mentioned) as videogames as a culture. Elmezeny and Wimmer (2018) build up the argument that we can look at videogames as a culture through micro, meso, and macro level analysis, and we should do so comparatively and abandon the one-level (micro or meso, or macro) approach. These approaches are prominent in the few studies I will introduce last as they deal more with the effects of lootboxes on individuals rather than culture. What I will do now is to argue that although I do agree with Elmezeny and Wimmer that we should focus on a broader understanding of gaming cultures – we should also do so culturally.

Šisler, Švelch, and Šlerka (2017) argue that the experience that is generated in the local context is connected to the transnational gaming system. I agree, and as Shaw (2010) said:

“Game studies have largely focused on validating video game consumption, video game texts, and video game players. Video game studies, however, should be reflex- ive, not reactive. The legacy of cultural studies on which video game studies should draw is not to study culture in games, though that is useful as well, but to investigate how video game culture is constructed. This is a critical, not descriptive practice.”

19 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

I will thus follow in the footsteps of the strong program in cultural sociology that can bring the cultural insight gaming studies to need. Through theories of Alexander (2006, 2018), Durkheim (1995), and Geertz (1973), I will describe and define the “gaming sphere” as a highly abstract concept that can encompass all the gamers from the US and Europe (as adding Asia, Africa, and Australia is beyond the scope of this thesis). This concept of the “gaming sphere” can thus be used by others to engage with the gaming worlds or gaming cultures as they were described before. Following the work of Alexander (2006) on the civil sphere, I will also describe the actors and their interaction not only within the “gaming sphere” but also outside. This means describing the interactions between the “gaming sphere” and the civil sphere as well as the role the agents (ibid.) play in resolving problems between these spheres. But we must first look at a few other works that will help me understand a particular concept of a lootbox that is the centerpiece of my analysis.

I will now briefly introduce the early perspectives of ethics, politics, and psychology. “Two Queens and a Pawn, Please” (Karhulahti and Kimppa, 2018) and “First dose is always freemium” (Kimppa ibid., 2016) provides a new perspective on e-sports as a gamified play with a focus on purchasable customization in games based on their effect (cosmetic, functional, out-game). Karhulahti and Kimppa have also situated the purchasable customizations within five demands: money, time, skill, luck, and occasion, upon which they show that some effect and demand combinations may result in ethical conflict when perceived through the sport-philosophical frame of athletic superiority (Karhulahti and Kimppa, 2018). Griffiths, in his paper: “Is the buying of loot boxes in videogames a form of gambling or gaming?” covers the especially important question of lootboxes being gambling or not. He approaches this question from both psychological and political perspective arriving at the conclusion that even though lootboxes display symptoms remarkably similar to the gambling addiction, ultimately, it is up to the regulatory entities, such as gambling commissions and game information services, to define what is and what is not gambling and how the law should approach it, especially when kids are concerned (Griffiths, 2018). For a similar analysis, see Drummond and Sauer (2018), Brooks and Clark (2019), Li, Mills, and Nower (2019), Kristiansen and Severin (2020), and Drum- mond, Sauer, Ferguson, and Hall (2020). In “Loot Boxes and Gambling,”

20 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Sztainert outlines the history of lootboxes as a form of gacha games (Jap- anese term for lootbox based game) and its iterations through types of game design and psychological impact upon the player in the form of risk-reward play with the illusion of control and positive reinforcement from the game (Sztainert, 2018). He also, same as Griffiths, stresses the importance of regulatory entities in this process of defining gacha (lootboxes). Same as Sztainert and Griffiths, Zendle and Cairns (2018) concluded that there is enough evidence to suggest regulation of lootboxes, but they also concluded that there is not enough evidence to link lootboxes to the most problematic forms of gambling. This opposed the conclusions of Drummond and Sauer (2018), Brooks and Clark (2019), Li, Mills, and Nower (2019), Kristiansen and Severin (2020), and Drum- mond, Sauer, Ferguson, and Hall (2020).

While Karhulahti, Kimppa, Griffiths, and Sztainert provided us with a solid definition of what a lootbox is, Erica L. Neely’s comprehensive ethical analysis of microtransactions (lootboxes included) in video and mobile games provides insight into the psychological play of the possibility of buying advantages in-game. She outlines the important concept of freemium games, which appear to be free to play, but expect a player to invest enormous amounts of money (compared to the standard of €59,99 for a AAA title) and what methods they use to achieve this (Neely, 2018). Neely’s main concern is, however, the ethics of putting microtransactions into all types of games and, most importantly for my thesis, the difference of ethical perspective between single-player and multi- player games. These works provide solid ground and framework for the concepts of fair-play, e-sport ethics, addiction problems, and differentia- tion between cosmetic and functional in-game purchases. Helpful for establishing the conceptual background for the lootbox and the psychological play, these studies tend to take the lootbox phenomenon as a fact that happened and does not need to be explained or indeed researched further.

My goal is thus to fill the gap in the research by bringing a cultural- sociological perspective from the strong program and explain these events by answering the question: Why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis? To do so, I will define a concept of the “gaming sphere” – a highly abstract concept that will encompass all the gamers from the US and Europe. Through this concept and Alexander’s

21 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

(2018) model of societalization, I will analyze the lootbox crisis as well as demonstrate the interactions of the agents from the “gaming sphere” and the civil sphere (Alexander, 2006). This concept of the “gaming sphere” will provide a comprehensive toolkit for further analysis of the gaming world and the problems that arrive within it and need to be resolved either within or outside its boundaries – in the civil sphere. Gam- ing has become more prevalent than ever in everyday lives, and the gaming industry grew exponentially since the 1970s. We need a toolbox that would help us understand all that is gaming, and the “gaming sphere” is that toolbox. Although I will focus solely on the lootbox crisis of 2017 in my analysis here, this toolbox I provide can be used to analyze and understand other problems that are already present or that will arise in the future and that deal with the world of gaming – the “gaming sphere.” Ex- amples of such problems could be the question of videogames and violence (American Psychological Association, 2015), virtual social words (Taylor, 2006, Jakobsson, 2007) and their interaction with the real world, and the current hot topic of games as enablers of gambling (Columb, Griffiths, and O’Gara, 2019). I believe that the “gaming sphere” will help us to understand the meaning and values that play a role in the discourses surrounding these problems and how they are dealt with in the civil sphere.

2.2 The Civil Sphere and Non-Civil Institutions

To answer this question, I will first briefly explain Alexander’s (2006) concept of the civil sphere and the non-civil institutions (and spheres). What is the civil sphere? The civil sphere is a kind of “solidarity” sphere in which people share feelings and symbolic commitments to what and how people speak about things and democratic social life (Alexander, 2006). It is a sphere in which community comes to be culturally defined, and to some degree, this cultural definition is institutionally enforced (ibid.). The production of this culture grows from binary cultural codes that are deeply rooted in social life – civil society is regulated by an inter- nally complex discourse that allows us to understand how universalistic ideals have been institutionalized (ibid.). Alexander (2006) identifies two major discourses when it comes to civil society: (1) discourse of liberty and (2) discourse of repression. These discourses carry binary cultural codes are that govern the motives, relationships, institutions, and

22 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK actions (ibid.). Each member or institution then strives to be on the sacred-liberty side of the binary oppositions (ibid.), and they engage in di- alogs and performances (Alexander, 2018) to remain sacred (Durkheim, 1995). The main agents of the civil sphere are thus the communicative institutions (ibid.) – the journalists from mass media, large associations, and public opinion influencers. In summary, the civil sphere is a sphere of solidarity that is shared across the nation(s) and in which the battle for civil repair – the process of re-evaluating a re-establishing sacred ideal – is fought. This performative battle is engaged in a social drama that is about to become a social crisis (Alexander, 2018), and it is a clash between the civil sphere and the non-civil sphere and/or institutions. So, what are the non-civil institutions, and how do they interact with the civil sphere?

Non-civil institutions are institutions outside the civil society (Alex- ander, 2006); they may belong to other spheres, such as economic, sport, or gaming. An example of such an institution can be Facebook, which, for the purpose of this example, I say Facebook belongs to its own sphere – the “social-media sphere” and not to the civil sphere. As such, it could be called out when doing something that threatens the sacred ideals of the civil society, and when that happens, the process of societalization (Alex- ander, 2018) begins. Non-civil spheres usually sustain reciprocity between other non-civil spheres and the civil sphere, and the performative battle, what Alexander (2018) calls the “process of societalization,” is fought only on occasions which he identifies as a social crisis (ibid.). Let us now focus on the actual process of societalization of social problems and how does social drama become a social crisis.

2.3 The Societalization of Social Problems

I have to start with Durkheim’s (1995) theory on sacred and profane as it is integral to Alexander’s mode of societalization. Durkheim (1995) po- sitioned this sacred-profane binary as the central characteristics of reli- gion – a unified system of beliefs that relates to sacred things. The sacred represents the interests of the group that is embodied into sacred symbols or totems (ibid.). These interests could be, for example, family, unity, or justice. The profane represents the mundane interests of the individ-

23 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ual (ibid.). Alexander (2018) builds on this binary and to answer the previous question: “Why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis?” I heavily leaned on his theory of societalization. Alexan- der (2018) created this model to explain a phenomenon he calls societalization of social problems. According to him, societalization is a process through which social dramas are transformed into a social crisis that engages civil society and leads to some resolution to the crisis. Let me first distinguish between social drama and social crisis. A social drama is a usually short-term event that may have created some outrage or hit some news outlets, but in the end, this drama did not have a reformative impact on civil society. In short, the drama came and went, and nothing major changed – meaning policies or behaviors and attitudes towards something. Social crisis, on the other hand, is a long-term drama that has evolved into a crisis by the process of societalization, and thus it has long- lasting effects such as changes in policies or changes in attitudes towards something. This process of societalization can be analyzed using Alexan- der’s (2018) model with chronological time states (T).

First, we have a stable state (T1). Alexander (2018) defines the stable state as a state in which there is a reciprocity between civil and non- civil spheres. No threat is being felt by either sphere. Any problem that arises remains inside the respective sphere. This state can be compared to the calm sea before the storm, just waiting for some strong incentive to start societalization. This state also encompasses all the social dramas – as they were unable to break through to the next time state (T2) and remain intra-sphere problems. But when the social drama triggers semiotic codes (Alexander, 2018), it moves to the T2, and societalization begins.

(T2) can be called the beginning of societalization. Semiotic codes were triggered – meaning the public (civil) attention moves from the intra-sphere-institutional to the whole context of the civil sphere (Alexan- der, 2018). This time state employs what Alexander (2018) calls the “civil sphere agents.” These agents are journalists, juries, or senators that ex- ercise their civil power (Alexander 2018) and mobilize resources to uncover the truth behind the social drama that triggered the semiotic codes. These resources are mainly generated from alarm and fear that comes from the breach the social drama brought. To better understand this concept, let me follow up with a hypothetical social crisis example that will

24 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK take us through time states (T2) to (T5): the “big Facebook data leak” from 2018 (Isaac and Frenkel, 2018). When Facebook leaked user data, it generated outrage at the Facebook institution of what we may call the “social media sphere.” This outrage would then have to trigger the semiotic codes (Alexander, 2018) – the sense of security and privacy people may associate with their data (posts, pictures, messages) they share on Facebook or in private groups and chats on Facebook. This sense of security and privacy was thus threatened by Facebook, leaking the data to whatever entity breached their servers. Thus, journalists will pick up on this report not just that the data leak happened, but also bring attention to the rights of online security and privacy. These concepts of security and privacy could be considered sacred (Alexander, 2018) – meaning that they are powerful enough to trigger the semiotic codes as these sacred values are threatened. The fear and alarm from this revelation in the civil sphere will generate resources for the journalists to cover the investigations thoroughly and policymakers to make regulatory interventions (T3).

Let us call time state (T3) the regulatory interventions time state. Here the civil sphere regulators – policymakers and those who hold power (Alexander, 2018) – prepare actions against the non-civil sphere institution (Facebook in our hypothetical example). These interventions are meant to protect the sacred values of security and privacy and to prevent their further pollution. In our hypothetical example, Facebook could be monetarily sanctioned, or policies can be proposed that would prevent Facebook from handling such data the way it did in the first place. These changes would be all made in the name of protection of the privacy and security of the common people. This is a small blank spot in Alexan- der’s theory (2018) as he presumes that in the civil sphere, there are these sacred universal values that we all share, i.e., freedom, privacy, family, etc. This makes his theory a bit problematic when used in the cross-state analysis as these values may be shared among American pop- ulations in Alexander’s case but may not be shared within other states. I would argue that maybe not all, but there are still some sacred values that are universal even when comparing different states, as I will show in my own analysis of the lootbox crisis in the US and European states. Thus, I hope my work will help with making this theory more generally applicable and as an even more useful toolbox to study the social crisis and social drama. But back to the model. When these interventions are

25 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK being put into place, the non-civil institution will try to intervene, and thus the social drama moves to the next time state (T4).

(T4) can be called the backlash time state. Alexander (2018) describes T4 as the separation of spheres, where the civil and non-civil institutions engage in a performative battle. In our example, Facebook would try to argue that it has the best intentions and did everything to protect the (sacred) privacy and security of its users. This battle will take place not just in media but may also be taken to congress hearings. The goal is always the same for Facebook, show performatively that Face- book is to be associated with security and privacy and not the opposite. Meanwhile, the civil sphere institutions have to investigate and purify (Alexander, 2018) the sacred values of privacy and security. This performative battle will then lead to one of two outcomes (T5). Either there will be a stand-off and no civil repair (Alexander, 2018) will occur, or there will be civil repair, and we return to the stable state (T1).

I will call (T5) the resolution time state. Here, the resolution to the now possible social crisis will be made. The first option is the stand-off (Alexander, 2018) position. The performative battle was not (yet) won by either side, and thus there is no civil repair – no new policies or changes in behavior and attitudes. This could mean that the social drama will be forgotten with time, and no resolution will come, meaning the process of societalization has failed, and the social drama did not become a social crisis. The second option is the civil repair and the return to the stable state (T1). This could mean, in our example, that there were policies put into place that forced Facebook to allow users to permanently delete their accounts or be able to remove any private information they desire. After these kinds of reparations are successful, the societalization succeeded, and the social drama have become a social crisis with long- lasting effects on the civil and non-civil spheres. The state of both spheres returns to (T1), and reciprocity is restored (Alexander, 2018). Before I describe the “Gaming sphere,” let me first quickly talk about the limit conditions of Alexander’s model.

Alexander (2018) presents two limit conditions that could hinder the process of societalization: (1) marginalization and (2) polarization of the civil society. The marginalization in civil society could lead to problems with the resources that civil sphere agents need to act. If something,

26 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK for example, happened to the Roma in the Czech Republic, there is a possibility that it would not get much coverage in the mainstream media as Roma are a marginalized group as opposed if the same thing happened to the “Little4” Czech. Thus, it may not be just about triggering the right semiotic codes but also about the resources needed for the coverage. The polarization of the civil society means that when during the (T2), there is no one clear “sacred vs. profane side” binary – it becomes extremely difficult for societalization to happen. As Alexander (2018, pp. 23) describes it:

“If societies are sharply divided against themselves, however, this growing recognition of anti-civil abuse is not enough. Social indignation can become refracted in a manner that fails to engage the full horizon of common concern.”

This paradoxically results in societalization, deepening division in the society, and sometimes even destroying the civil sphere instead of repair- ing it (Alexander, 2018).

2.4 The Gaming Sphere

After presenting what research has been done on gaming, I will now define my concept of the gaming sphere. The gaming sphere is a non-civil sphere that encompasses the (1) world of gaming – the act of playing videogames of any kind, the (2) world of videogame production and (3) dis- tribution, and the (4) world of videogame-related content consumption and (5) production. I will extensively describe the gaming sphere based on my reviewed research (see subchapter 2.1) while also acknowledging the fact that I am a gamer myself and have been for almost two decades. I will thus draw not only from my research but also from my personal

4 The paradox of the Great Czech Nations that sees itself as the king of the world and other nations as flawed, especially Roma while simultaneously Czech describing other Czechs as flawed when referring to specific individuals. See The Little Czech and The Great Czech Nation from Ladislav Holy (1996) for more extensive explana- tion about the little Czech and the Great Czech nation.

27 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK experience and observations to help the reader better grasp what the gaming sphere is and who are its agents, entities, and institutions, similar to how Alexander (2018) builds up the non-civil spheres in the process of societalization. While Elmezeny and Wimmer (2018) and Šisler, Švelch, and Šlerka (2017) both acknowledged the importance of experiences that are generated locally (in videogaming cultures) are connected to the transnational gaming system – they both do so in the paradigm of the sociology of culture. I argue that “gaming culture” deserves its autonomy and, as such, can be an actor – the gaming sphere. I argue that the gaming sphere is transnational, not local, and similar to Shaw (2010), I think that the cultural approach will help us understand gaming as a world phenomenon better than focusing on videogaming cultures.

The understanding of the gaming sphere is crucial for my analysis in the fourth chapter as the lootbox controversy happens in the gaming sphere, and readers unfamiliar with the world of videogames can thus use this concept to better understand the gaming discourse. Alexander (2006) argued that people in the civil sphere shared a set of common moral values that are considered to be sacred. Likewise, I argue that we can find a set of such common values in the gaming sphere that transcend the gaming cultures described by Taylor (2006) and Jakobsson (2007) as well as Elmezeny and Wimmer (2018).

Before I start defining the agents and entities in the gaming sphere, I must address the literature so far and how it dealt with specifically the “gamer.” So, let us start with the definition of my concept of gamers. You may have noticed that I have been inconsistent with the use of quotation marks when it comes to the word gamer or gamers. I have used the quotation marks to differentiate the use of the label gamer as a descriptor and as a concept. When I wrote “gamer,” it was used as a descriptor in the paper without a further definition or was substituted with a different label – the player. As these labels mean the same thing when referring to the people that are playing (players) video games (gamers) – I chose to use just the label “gamers” in quotation marks. The only exception is when I was talking about Shaw (2012) as she uses gamers as a concept, although not clearly defined as I discussed in the previous chapters. From now on, I will be referring to gamers as a concept, thus without quotation marks. The other entities and agents I describe were not defined by the previous literature (Whalen and Taylor, 2008, Cade and

28 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Gates, 2016, Hand and Moore, 2006, Elmezeny and Wimmer, 2018) I reviewed and were used only as labels for actual professions with “gaming” attached to them.

I define gamers as people who play videogames on a somewhat regular or recurring basis. This quite general definition is necessary to describe all the people that actually interact with the gaming sphere as the ones performing the act of playing videogames. I will not be dividing gamers into groups that may be heard throughout the gaming discourse as “casual” or “hardcore” gamers, or even by platform as “mobile,” “pc,” or “console” gamers (Shaw, 2010). This extensive labeling system is inconsistent in its definition for each and one subcategory of the gamer and thus ineffective as a describer for an entity from the gaming sphere. Thus, gamer for me is everyone, regardless of the platform they play on or the time they invest per week or per month. What is important is that they do engage in the act of playing videogames and do so somewhat regularly as opposed to people who played videogames once and are no longer active players. This definition also includes people we may call the “watch- ers” – gamers that primarily watch others play videogames (Gros, Wan- ner, Hackenholt, Zawadzki, and Knautz, 2017), but they do still occasion- ally play videogames themselves. This act of watching while also playing is similar to football fans who sometimes go out with a friend and play their own football matches. Gamers are thus part of the (1) world of gaming and (4) world of videogame-related content consumption. Video- games must be produced somehow, and this is where the second entity of the gaming sphere comes in – the game developers.

Game developers can be individual persons or institutions which are engaging in the act of creating videogames. They share the same re- lations with gamers as artisans selling their goods on the market and dealing directly with gamers themselves or, more commonly, by using a digital marketplace such as Steam5. Similar to other creators and crafts- men, game developers are called out when their products are of insuffi- cient or lower than expected quality. This may result from three main

5 One of the biggest videogame stores that can be accessed on the address: https://store.steampowered.com/ and users can proceed with shopping as they would in any other e-shop. Other similar marketplaces are GOG, Epic Games Store, and Origin.

29 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK reasons: (1) the game was published without promised content, (2) the game was published sooner than ready and has stability issues, and (3) the game was overzealously monetized or even allows buying advantage against other gamers with real money. To lift some of the blame from game developers, we have to also talk about game publishers. Game publishers are institutions with significant economic capital that distribute games of their own or other smaller game developers. This causes a problem in the gaming discourse as the line between game publisher and game developer begins to blur, especially when there is blame to take. A great example is the game publisher Activision Blizzard, a parent company of a game developer Blizzard Entertainment, formerly known as Blizzard North. While Activision Blizzard mainly publishes games created by Blizzard Entertainment, it is also a game developer for other games, such as Call of Duty. Blizzard Entertainment is also cited as a publisher and developer on many of the games they created. Thus, for the purposes of my analysis, I will still distinguish between game developers and game publishers based on the context in the discourse – if I am talking about the act of videogame making, I will refer to the entities as game developers, and if I am talking about the act of videogame publishing, I will refer to the entities as game publishers. There is also a disclaimer to be made that, to my knowledge, there is no virtual videogame marketplace owned by an entity that is not a game publisher; thus, I will not categorize the gaming marketplaces as a separate entity as they are referred to through their owners who are game publishers. Now let us focus on the gaming sphere agents.

Gaming sphere agents are gaming journalists and content creators. Gaming journalist is a self-explanatory term; they are journalists who focus on the gaming sphere. Content creators are people who create content related to videogames (videos, comedy-shorts, stories, live streaming on a platform). Examples of content can be a walkthrough on a game on YouTube, offering one’s thoughts on a social drama in the gaming sphere, streaming gaming on Twitch (Gros, Wanner, Hackenholt, Zawadzki, & Knautz, 2017), and producing news on game-related topics such as updates or changes in the gaming industry. These content creators can be very influential, depending on their viewer/reader base. They can be viewed as Instagram influencers of the gaming sphere – they are offered sponsorships from game developers or publishers as well as

30 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK other product placement that is usually gaming-related. Similar to Alex- ander’s (2018) civil sphere agents, these gaming sphere agents are the moving force when it comes to moving social dramas to social crisis. They are the communicative institutions (ibid.) of the gaming sphere. When semiotic codes are triggered (ibid.), the gaming sphere agents ex- ercise their power (influence) to investigate and expose practices used by game developers or game publishers that threaten the sacred values of civil society. These practices are then scrutinized as profane and require civil repair (ibid.). I will present two such cases of societalization (ibid.), one successful and one not, in the fourth chapter.

31 METHODOLOGY

3 Methodology

Having formulated a research question: “Why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis?” and chose a guiding theory, I will now focus on the process of selection and creation of my dataset that I have used for the analysis of the 2017 lootbox controversy. I will also shortly describe the method of thick description and interpretative analysis I used during the creation of my lootbox societalization model and interpretation of articles and hearings that I present in the following chapter four, the societalization of lootboxes.

3.1 Data Selection and Data Collection

I have collected my analytical dataset in three ways. First, I have searched the indexed internet using Google and Yahoo using the search words: “lootbox controversy,” “lootbox crisis,” “ea battlefront lootboxes,” “lootboxes laws,” “gaming is gambling,” “are lootboxes gambling,” “lootboxes gambling law,” etc. I will not list all the search word combinations as that would over bloat this paragraph, and since I am not going for a truly random search as I have to select one of the dozens of the same articles that have been reposted on different sites. So, I have searched each of these search words on both Google and Yahoo as separate search terms and then selected the first twenty hits based on the relevance sorting algorithm applied by these search engines. If one of these twenty articles was a duplicate (the same article posted on multiple websites), I have used the Crowd Tangle link checker6 – a chrome extension that searches all the interactions (sharing, liking, commenting with hashtags) to social media sites of a specific article (CrowdTangle, 2016). Using this extension, I was able to determine the most shared article of all the duplicates, and that article was added to my dataset. The second source of the online news articles was the Twitter feed of Jason Schreier (and consequently, due to the Twitter reactionary nature also Twitter feed from other journalists – notably Jim Sterling and Michael Bell). I have chosen Schreier as he is

6 Widely spread tool for investigative journalists and other social scientists that are working with the big data from social networks. Available for free on the Google Chrome Store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/crowdtangle-link- checker/klakndphagmmfkpelfkgjbkimjihpmkh

32 METHODOLOGY covering the gaming industry since 2010. He is the author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels – book about game development using insider information (Schreier, 2017c), and a reporter at Bloomberg News. Previously, he spent eight years at Kotaku (Park, 2020). He has also covered games for Wired and has contributed to outlets such as The New York Times or The Onion News Network. He thus brings the perspective from the inside of the companies (Schreier, 2017c) that were part of the lootbox controversy as well as his commentary on the matter. I have selected all articles that were posted there and covered the lootbox controversy, again dealing with duplicates using the Chrome extension. Third, I will be sparsely using the comments from the comment section under the selected online news articles, mostly to illustrate certain attitudes or as a piece of anec- dotal evidence. My final data set thus consists of sixty-seven online or video articles and part of the full transcript from the “Oral evidence: Im- mersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846” (see appendix A). I had selected this oral evidence specifically as it was discussed in most of the articles when it came out and referenced (specifically the part about “surprise mechanics”) long after its initial release. There is also the question of time as I did not do all the searches and collection in one month. I have been working on this topic since 2017, and since that, I have been collecting online news articles as I described at the beginning of this chapter. This sadly hinders the replicability of the searches as the relevance changes over time and the algorithm Google or Yahoo uses is not public, but I believe that it helped me find the most relevant news articles in the time when the events were actually happening rather than in ret- rospective.

Having established the final dataset, I have ordered the articles chronologically and created a timeline (see appendix B) with major events that I have identified and that occurred during the process of societalization of the lootboxes. This timeline should also serve as a guide while reading through chapter four. Based on this timeline, Alexander’s (2018) theory of societalization, and my concept of the gaming sphere, I have constructed the model of societalization of lootboxes that helps us interpret the meanings of lootboxes and monetization in videogames and how the civil sphere reacts to these meanings being shifted inside the gaming sphere. Let me now briefly introduce the methods I used when constructing my societalization model and interpreting the meanings of lootboxes.

33 METHODOLOGY

3.2 Thick Description and Interpretative Analysis

Let me first answer the question: Why cultural sociology? Following the strong program (Alexander, 2004), I also treat culture as relatively autonomous, and through this paradigm, I can look at the “gaming cultures” and see gaming as an autonomous entity that shapes the cultural meanings (in my case, the meanings of lootboxes). I have established in the theory chapter that the predominant paradigm when researching gaming is the sociology of culture, with the exception of the work of Shaw (2010) or more quantitative approaches when it comes to politics and psychology outlooks. I have chosen the cultural-sociological approach so I can explore the inner meanings, ideas, and symbolic processes that have an independent effect on social institutions as well as politics (Al- exander 2004). This approach is underutilized when it comes to the research of gaming, and one of my main goals is thus to bring this cultural perspective of the strong program together with Shaw (2010) and to help strengthen the cultural-sociological paradigm when it comes to researching gaming. I believe, together with Alexander (2004) and Shaw (2010), that cultural sociology can help us produce new social knowledge (in the forms of meanings) that would elude us if we would stick to the reductionist sociology of culture – treating culture as a de- pendent variable. When talking about the strong program in cultural sociology, I must also address one of the pillars of the strong program (Al- exander 2004) – the thick description.

Thick Description was first introduced by Gilbert Ryle in his chapter The Thinking of Thoughts: What is 'Le Penseur' Doing in 1949 (Ryle, 2009). Ryle (2009) defines thick description as the description that adds the context to behavior as opposed to the thin description, which includes only the surface-level observation of said behavior. Ryle’s (2009) example with twitching and winking an eye clearly distinguishes thick and thin description: Thin description describes the eye as contracting eyelids. The thick description explains the gesture as either winking, fake-winking, parody, or involuntary action. The thick description provides the context and meanings we need to distinguish these different types of “twitching eyelids,” same as I need the thick description to distinguish different meanings of lootboxes – which are not as thin as just a box full of loot. Following Ryle’s work, Clifford Geertz (1973) re-popular-

34 METHODOLOGY ized the concept of thick description in his article Thick Description: To- ward an Interpretive Theory of Culture and later in the Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight (Geertz 2005). Geertz (1973) advocates the methodology that puts culture in the center and how it is interpreted from the perspective of the people that are experiencing it. By this, he took a stand against anthropological practices that he deemed reductive in nature – a thin description. Geertz (1973) proposed the use of thick description, which introduces culture as semiotic. This adds to the observation of behavior also an interpretation of signs and the deeper meaning behind these behaviors – the thick description. So, the thick description is a process of describing not only the observation of behaviors and processes but also the underlying deep meanings and signs that add context to the observed. Through thick description, we are able to understand culture as a system of meanings – this shifted is usually being referred to as the cultural turn, and Geertz’s influence played an arguably great role.

So great that Jeffrey Alexander (2004) makes the (1) thick description one of the constitutive elements of the strong program in cultural sociology, alongside (2) a theory of culture which has autonomy built into the fabric of meaning, and (3) construction of general theories of culture. To summarize, the thick description is a method of interpretation of the meaning behind actions. I have used thick description and interpretative analysis to extract the deep meanings of lootboxes from the articles and video-articles (using their scripts as the text for analysis as this is still mainly a textual analysis, and I will highlight when I have included the video cues, such as sound and emotion of the participants) to recon- struct and explain the lootbox controversy using Alexander’s (2018) model of societalization. I will also analyze the comments from the comments sections of my articles as this feature of web-based media outlets will give us a better and deeper understanding of the intentions, reac- tions, and interpretation from the actors of the civil and gaming sphere themselves. Same as Geertz (1973) – putting the culture in the center and interpreting it from the perspective of the people that are experiencing it. What does it mean to do the interpretative analysis?

To do interpretative analysis is to explore in detail how people are making sense of their personal and social worlds (Smith and Osborn, 2014). This exploration is done by examining people’s lifeworlds, personal experiences, and how the individuals are interpreting (what is

35 METHODOLOGY their perception of) some events or objects (ibid.) This means that in my case, I will be trying to capture the experiences and perceptions of lootboxes (and monetization in games) and how they evolved over the course of the lootbox controversy. This involves a two-stage process. People first are trying to make sense of their world – this is captured in the online news articles and comment sections. Second, I, as a researcher, will try to make sense of the people that are trying to make sense of their world (ibid.). In other words, I will try to uncover the meaning-making process when it comes to lootboxes and how they enter the gaming discourse and the changes that happen along the way and why. In short, through the interpretative analysis, I will try to understand what it is like (the lootbox controversy) from the perspective of the participants (gaming journalists, gamers, game developers and publishers, civil agents). After that, I will try to uncover the hidden meanings that the participants may not be fully aware of and that are underlying the process of societalization – such as the binary of sacred and profane (Durkheim, 1995, Al- exander, 2006) I discussed in the theoretical chapter.

36 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES

4 The Societalization of Lootboxes

I will now present my interpretation of the lootbox crisis from 2017 using Alexander’s (2018) model of societalization as a guiding theory. But first, let us talk about the lootbox controversy in more general terms. I have presented Sztainer’s definition of a lootbox in chapter two. He defines lootbox as a form of gacha (Japanese term for lootbox based on the casino vending machine) and its iterations through types of game design and psychological impact upon the player in the form of risk-reward play with the illusion of control and positive reinforcement from the game (Sztainert, 2018). Lootbox is thus a form of a virtual container that you can acquire inside videogames using real or virtual currency. These lootboxes can contain various items that are beneficial in their respective games – a different color variation of medieval armor, ways to change the color of your virtual character’s hair, special ammunitions to your weap- ons, and other pieces of content that the game publisher or developer decided to monetize as an optional. This optionality – presenting lootboxes as something not needed to enjoy the game but as something extra – is a reoccurring debate (Schreier, 2017a) with almost every major AAA7 game title that included lootboxes (Tassi, 2017). Paul Tassi (2017), a writer for Forbes, talks about the problem of the lootbox in the game Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (ME:SoW) in his article titled: “How Shadow of War's Loot Boxes Cripple the Game, Even If You Can 'Ignore' Them.” He engages in a debate whether are lootboxes truly optional, and this debate is central to the lootbox crisis that started with the release of the previously mentioned videogame: Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. Let us take a closer look.

“The general thought about these loot boxes is that while their existence is stupid, you can largely ignore them. The base game (grind-heavy “true” endings aside) is beatable without them, which seems to reflect the developer saying ahead of launch that the game was balanced without loot boxes in mind (Tassi, 2017).”

7 An informal classification used for video games produced and distributed by a mid- sized or major publisher, typically having higher development and marketing budg- ets. AAA is analogous to the film industry term ‘blockbuster’ (Steinberg, 2007)

37 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES

Here Tassi acknowledges the optionality of the lootboxes when it comes to ME:SoW. He also mentions that “the game was balanced without loot boxes in mind,” – meaning that the game developer assured gamers that their game would be playable and completable without the need of spending additional real money to buy lootboxes. Tassi (2017) later explains that even though the game is beatable without spending money on lootboxes, the game itself was altered to incorporate lootboxes as a game mechanic and incentivize their use by offering them to you also using virtual money (currency) you can earn by playing the game:

“There could have been a million ways to use earned currency in Shadow of War, but you are instead meant to spend 80% of your money on crappy loot boxes with randomized drops. This is, of course, meant to tempt you into buying non-crappy loot boxes by simply putting you in the store […]” (Tassi, 2017).

But the fact that these lootboxes were optional was not the only issue – as Jason Schreier (2017a) writes for video gaming magazine Kotaku: “Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to surprise 2014 hit Shadow of Mordor, will come stuffed with loot boxes and microtransactions, not just for cosmetics but for gear that improves your main character.” The fact that these lootboxes were optional, yet they offered gear that would improve your main character – meaning giving you an advantage over other players when it comes to online leaderboards and competition – was the spark for the lootbox controversy. Especially as ME:SoW just released at the end of September 2017 and was followed by another videogame with similar lootbox issues: Battlefront II, at the beginning of No- vember 2017. Star Wars: Battlefront II even had their lootbox system changed by the game developer before releasing as Allegra Frank (2017) writes in her article on Polygon: “Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot boxes undergo changes, following criticism: A little less pay-to-win.” This phare “pay-to-win” or P2W means that someone can achieve an advantage over another by spending money (Frank, 2017). This feeling of injustice as some players could spend thousands of dollars (Gach, 2017) to gain an advantage over those who could not or would not spend that much was the center of the lootbox controversy of 2017. But as we read before in my theory chapter on societalization, this controversy would be just an-

38 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES other social drama as this reoccurring debate over the fairness and optionality of lootboxes was present in the gaming discourse before. ME:SoW and Star Wars: Battlefront II looked like another game that sparked drama and controversy that will remain intra-sphere (Alexan- der, 2018) and won’t move to T2. Until something changed in the discourse, and that something will be revealed now.

4.1 T1 – The Stable State

We arrive at time state (T1) – the stable state. Here no threat is being felt by either gaming or the civil sphere. Any problem that arises remains inside their respective spheres. The reciprocity between spheres is main- tained in (T1) (Alexander, 2018). It is September 2017, and the lootbox controversy just started as an intra-sphere problem. The gaming sphere agents are being engaged and start reporting on the problems of lootboxes with the new AAA release of Middle-Earth: Shadow of War game. The main concern is the P2W – the ability to buy power (advantage) in a videogame with real money – that lootboxes allow. As I will show now, this concern alone was not enough to engage code switching, and thus the lootbox controversy stayed in the stable state (T1) until the Battle- front II lootbox controversy.

4.1.1 Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and Why Societalization Failed? The discourse around lootboxes in the gaming sphere during the lootbox controversy in 2017 started out with the concern for fair-play (Schreier, 2017a) and the seeming optionality (Tassi, 2017) of lootboxes in videogames. The outrage that a AAA videogame would include lootboxes that allowed you to pay to gain advantages such as faster progress in the game or getting better items that increase your power sooner was pickup by almost every major videogame media outlet.

39 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES

Many were encouraging gamers to fight against this. Daniel Friedman from Polygon wrote:

“Experience boosts are the only item in Shadow of War that you can only get with gold, a premium currency that is extremely scarce as a gameplay reward, and which the game encourages you to purchase with real money. But although the game is very stingy with free gold, you can get enough of this currency to boost your experience without paying real money” (Friedman, 2017).

In his article, Friedman encourages gamers to stick to the free8 method of acquisition of the experience boosters (an item that increases the speed at which your virtual character gains power) and to not buy them with real money. Kyle Orland (2017) from Ars Technica reported about players that cheated to get around the need to buy lootboxes: “What makes the ‘infinite Mirian’ cheat more significant is that it can be used to purchase infinite Silver War Chests, which in turn grant new ‘Epic’ orc followers and consumable in-game items.” Game developers and publishers often use different names for their virtual currencies (Mirian, Di- amonds, Gold, etc.) and lootboxes (Silver War Chests, Battle Crate, Ulti- mate Pack, etc.), but they are the same in their function and usage; thus, I will be referring to them as virtual currencies and lootboxes regardless of the game. Orland (2017) points out that the game publisher of ME:SoW Warner Brothers: “hopes some players will avoid that grind by purchas- ing Gold War Chests, which can be purchased with actual money.” This paints us a better picture of the sides in this controversy. On the one side, we have the gamers, and on the other, the gaming publishers and developers. Same as in the civil sphere (Alexander, 2006), the majority of gaming sphere agents (journalists) take sides with the gamers; that can be considered “the public” of the gaming sphere. But back to the method where gamers are given “free” virtual currency to spend on the lootboxes.

8 It would be nice to mention that even though many gamers and journalists refer to these ways how to obtain the virtual currency as “free” – by playing the game and paying for lootboxes. There is the fact that the game itself costs around $60 to buy in its basic version, which is somewhat standardized price for AAA games (Sobolev, 2020),

40 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES

This method of giving gamers “free” virtual currency that can be used to purchase lootboxes was scrutinized (Tassi, 2017) before as manipulative and even producing twitter responses from big gaming-related sites such as OpenCritic:

“We're going to take a stand against loot boxes. We're looking into ways to add business model information to OpenCritic. Let us know your thoughts on how we can categorize and display "business model intrusiveness" on game pages in a fair and scalable way. Some of our early axis: Random / Loot box vs "Sure-thing" / buying direct Cosmetic vs buying power Exclusively paid vs can be acquired in game Prompts during gameplay vs ded- icated store 100% unlock completion time with no pay- ment” (OpenCritic, 2017).

There is a lot to unpack. First, OpenCritic takes a stand against lootboxes and acknowledges their importance to the videogame by proposing adding business model (what kind of in-game purchases are in the game) information to their site. Secondly, they distinguish between random (lootboxes) and not-random (direct purchase) items as well between cosmetic (items that do not give you power advantage) and non-cosmetic items (items that give you power advantage over other gamers). Lastly, they distinguish between items that are acquired only with real money and items that can also be acquired in the game. I will focus more on the binaries cosmetic and non-cosmetic as they are the source of “unfair- ness” in videogame if the non-cosmetic items are present and buyable for real money. The binary of random vs. direct purchase would be a topic for another paper, and for now, I will focus only on the random side as lootboxes as random. This aspect of randomness simply means that if you would, for example, want a nice new shiny war-ax for the virtual character, you have to “get lucky” from the lootbox, which could mean you would spend more money than if you would be able to directly purchase that specific war-ax. Both random and non-random acquisition, in this case, would still be non-cosmetic and thus deemed unfair. Maybe you have noticed that the binary cosmetic and non-cosmetic could be re- named as fair and unfair in this context. This brings us back to Alexander (2018) and the model of societalization. We are looking for the codes that

41 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES will switch and allow this lootbox controversy to transcend to (T2). But as time has shown, the attack on the – what I would argue is sacred – value of “fairness” was not enough to break through the gaming sphere and into the civil sphere. The discourse in the gaming sphere remained on the “what is fair” axis for a while until a new type of online newspaper articles started to be published.

4.1.2 Where Did Star Wars: Battlefront II Picked Up? When Star Wars: Battlefront II was released on the 17th of November, we were still in the stable state (T1). This was about to change as two days before its release, articles about lootboxes as a promotion of gambling started popping up. BBC News (2017) reported on the 15th of November on the reddit.com campaign against lootboxes with a thought-provoking image: Image 1 A poster campaign on Reddit.com in the protest against lootboxes.

This image shows a part of the slot machine wheel with icons from the Star Wars universe and claims that loot crates (lootboxes) are gambling as they function the same as slot machines – same as Sztainert (2018) compared lootboxes to the gacha games (Japanese games based on the vending machine that dispenses random toys). The anonymous author also mentions Disney as the copyright holder of the Star Wars franchise. This altogether could be interpreted as a message that Disney allows gambling in videogames for kids (as Battlefront II is rated for kids 16+ in the EU according to my box copy of the game). The Star Wars icons are

42 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES not the only thing that evokes the big franchise – there is also the background that may seem familiar to anyone who watched any Star Wars film as it is the background upon which introductory credits roll. We can also see that the roll on the vending machine was Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and Wookiee (presumably Chewbacca). I would argue that there is hidden meaning in this as the first two characters could be considered “the bad guys” in the Star Wars universe (pre-The Mandalorian), and Chew- bacca is the only good guy in the roll. The hidden meaning would then be that the bad guys over-rolled the good guy, yet as per the rules of the vending machine, did not win as it requires all three columns to be the same. I see a glimpse of hope in this that the lootbox controversy is yet to be decided. The “how it was decided” will be revealed through my analysis in this chapter.

This proposed correlation between gambling and lootboxes and the engagement of the Star Wars franchise would probably start a big wave of new articles covering lootboxes gambling, and for a day, it did. But then another thing happened that brings us to (T2).

4.2 T2 – The Beginning of Societalization

At 3 PM CET on the 16th of November, Vic Hood (2017) from Eurogamer published an article with the title: “Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot boxes investigated by the Belgian Gaming Commission.” Shortly after its original publishing, there was an update that: “According to Dutch news outlet NU.nl, the Dutch Gambling Authority has now launched an investigation into whether games with loot boxes are games of chance” (Hood 2017). Mariella Moon (2017) wrote for the web Engadget:

“As Commission chairman Peter Naessens points out, random loot boxes are a game of chance. Authorities are especially concerned over the fact that the games are marketed towards children. Naessens says kids could feel forced to spend a lot of money under social pressure. EA made earning heroes easier after facing backlash, but players might still end up spending seri- ous money on the game -- according to a computation by Star Wars Gaming, it will take at least 4,528 hours

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of gameplay or $2,100 to unlock all its base content” (Moon, 2017).

All these reports of two gambling committees have one thing in common. They are not only concerned that lootboxes might be gambling but also that they are in the games that are marketed towards children. Moon (2017) explicitly stated that authorities are “especially concerned over the fact that the games are marketed towards children.” The reason for this concern is explained by Naessens as this creates social pressure on the children that could force them to spend a lot of money on the game (Moon, 2017). This focus on children is important as then the question about lootboxes shifts towards the protection of children as lootboxes become tainted and profane symbols (Durkheim, 1995) of gambling. As I showed in the stable state (T1), the sacred (ibid.) value of “fairness” was not enough to push lootbox controversy towards societalization. This may be because the value “fairness” is not as universal as the sacred values Alexander (2006) identified when theorizing the civil sphere. But I would argue otherwise as we saw previously in the citations from Open- Critic (2017) and Friedman (2017), the problem was more about the polarization on the issue in the gaming sphere rather than the perceived attack on the universal values of society. When asking for “thoughts on how we can categorize and display ‘business model intrusive-ness,’” OpenCritic (2017) shows that lootboxes were not set-in-stone as a profane in that period of time. The debate was just starting to open the question of lootboxes as something that maybe should be labeled – if they are considered to be worth labeling.

This labeling is important in the gaming industry as ESRB (Schreier, 2017b) is an institution devoted to labeling videogames that include things to be considered harmful to people or the morals of the society – considering that lootboxes were not considered gambling by ESRB (ibid.) at this point in time points towards the polarization in the gaming sphere around the issue of lootboxes. Lootboxes were a game mechanic that game developers defended as optional (Friedman, 2017). I argue that this optionality argument played a greater role at the beginning of the lootbox controversy because when a game mechanic is considered to be optional, the line between fair and unfair starts to blur. What is fair in a videogame? Would we considered being fair the option for people to buy

44 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES certain items to compensate for the lack of time they have to play videogames? Would we consider this option to be unfair to the gamers that have the time and spend it in the videogame but lack the funds to afford this optional “boost” in the form of a lootbox? This brings in the battle of two separate resources –time and money. As Friedman (2017) points out, “but although the game is very stingy with free gold, you can get enough of this currency to boost your experience without paying real money.” This means that if one wanted to avoid spending money on lootboxes, they must spend the time to get the “free gold.” Time vs. real money – other factors that polarized the gaming sphere when it came to lootboxes at the beginning of the lootbox controversy around ME:SoW. But then the newspaper articles started connecting children to lootboxes and lootboxes to gambling. This code switching (Alexander, 2018) towards the protection of children from gambling that was symbolized in the form of a lootbox avoided the polarization by changing the meaning of a lootbox. Lootbox was no longer an optional game mechanism (also referred to as a game mechanic) that allowed questionable advantages in exchange for real money. Lootbox was now the symbol of gambling, and since lootboxes were present in videogames marketed towards children, that created a threat that was felt by the civil sphere. Gambling is not for children (Moon, 2017); it is an adult thing, alongside a represen- tation of violence, sexual acts, or alcohol drinking, to name a few of the labels used by the ESRB. But if gambling is not for children, what it is doing in games that are labeled as such (FIFA is rated E – meaning for everyone; Battlefront II is rated T – meaning for teens; only ME:SoW is rated M – meaning mature 17+ by the ESRB according to the labels on my box copies of the games)? Gambling as a profane value symbolized by the lootboxes threatened the sacred value of children as someone innocent in need of protection from the profane. Thus, it was no longer about “fairness” but about the need for civil repair (Alexander, 2018) as the sacred value of children was polluted (Douglas, 2002) by profane gambling. This need for civil repair and outrage about gambling that is advertised to children (Moon, 2017) generated enough resources for societalization to begin. No longer was the gaming sphere polarized as the now more important question about the safety and protection of children against gambling overtook the initial concerns for the “fairness” of lootboxes.

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Let us have a hypothetical example with Tommy and Ginny that would help us understand more about the concern that children are in danger when playing games with lootboxes in them Moon and Naessens are having. If we can agree that little Tommy, whose parents cannot afford to buy him the latest iPhone, would feel social pressure from his classmates whose parents buy their kids the latest iPhone – we can agree that this could happen in the lootbox situation. Let us have Tommy play Star Wars Battlefront II; he invested a good amount of time playing yet – due to the slow nature of in-game progress in Battlefront II – was not able to get the new skin for Darth Vader. His friend Ginny, using her parent's linked account, bought 20 “exclusive deal lootboxes” and got Darth Vader for $200 in total. This allowed her to have something to show her friends who also play how “cool” her Darth Vader looks while Tommy was stuck with the regular old skin (look). I would argue that this situation and similar ones would create social pressure, as Neassens (Moon, 2017) points out. This pressure would create incentives for Tommy to also spend real money to “be cool” among his friends – the same as Ginny. I argue that this pressure also played a major role in pushing the societalization forward as it generated multiple stories (I will present some of them throughout the analysis) with a similar pattern: Chil- dren spending a not-insignificant amount of their parent’s money on videogame lootboxes. Using my hypothetical example, I wanted to cumulate them while also pointing out why lootboxes are perceived as threatening to children as lootboxes can manipulate (Neely, 2019) them into spending money. Most of the official statements I will present later in the analysis consider children to be unable to understand the fact they are spending real money. But before we move on, I want to address the possible confusion about microtransactions and lootboxes. Lootboxes are microtransactions, but they add the element of randomness similar to the casino vending machines (Neely, 2019). This means that microtransactions themselves are not always gambling as they may also involve the direct purchase of a specific item; thus, my analysis mainly deals with a sub- group of microtransactions – lootboxes. Because of the added element of randomness, lootboxes became the symbol of gambling for children, and thus they were the target of civil repair – more specifically, their removal or regulation in videogames. My hypothetical example is sometimes re- ality, though.

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We can jump in time a bit and look at the example provided by Zoe Kleinman in 2019. The article titled “My son spent £3,160 in one game” reports on a case where 22 years old disabled son spent over £3,000 on a mobile game called Hidden Artifacts (Kleinman, 2019). Kleinman (2019) also reports on another case of multiple underaged children racking up huge debts in the video game FIFA – a football simulator game published by Electronic Arts, the same company that published Star Wars Battlefront II. Let us focus on the first case with the game Hidden Artifacts first. A quick search on the Google Play store page shows us that Hidden Artifacts is rated E for Everyone – meaning kids of all ages. This means that this game that is marketed for kids could potentially cost you quite a bit of money if you are not incredibly careful as a parent. Because like Kleinman (2019) points out, this educational game has mechanics inside it that could prey on innocent children. As a side note, Hidden Ar- tifacts is still available on the Google Play store as of January 2021 and rated E – meaning for everyone, children included. But back to societalization. I argue that these kinds of stories in news article sparked outrage about the threat to the civil sphere’s sacred values – children. This, in turn, generates resources (Alexander, 2018) for the civil sphere agents to initiate civil repair. In other words, the switch towards the protection of sacred children from profane gambling – predatory practice – was the switch lootbox controversy of 2017 was waiting for and that generated enough public outrage that in turn generated enough resources to move the lootbox controversy and us into the (T3) – regulatory interventions.

4.3 T3 – The Regulatory Interventions

We now move to the Christmas time of 2017 with Alex Hern (2017) from The Guardian wishing us Merry Christmas and also calling for action against lootboxes. “Video games are unlocking child gambling. This has to be reined in,” Hern says. He then continues:

“I heard from Dave, a primary school teacher from Lim- erick, Ireland: primary school-age children spending over €500 (£443) on card packs in Fifa Ultimate Team […] More worrying for him, though, are the regular buyers: children who spend €20 a week on new player packs. “There’s concern about the long-term habits of spending on a chance to gain an item.” Kids have all the

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typical responses that adults have to gambling in these transactions, (anger, disappointment, the urge to spend again to have another roll of the dice), without any of the impulse control and awareness that most adults have. “Developers may argue about their legal definition as gambling, but the ‘boots on the ground’ view shows that there is very little difference to children and the behaviours it promotes in them” (Hern, 2017)

This reappearing situation with children succumbing to the addiction that gambling provides (Hern, 2017) strengthens the position for the civil sphere agents and their goal of civil repair (Alexander, 2018). Asso- ciating the risks of gambling with the inability of children to control im- pulses is a prime example of how the problem no longer concerned just the gaming sphere but the civil sphere also. The sacred children are to be protected from the world of profane – in this case, gambling. They are considered to be unable to comprehend what gambling is or even to as- sess the real value of things that are offered to them inside videogames. This is meant by Dave when he says: “There’s concern about the long- term habits of spending on a chance to gain an item” (Hern, 2017). Gam- bling lootboxes threaten the children not only as a present and immedi- ate threat but also as a long-term problem when formed into a habit – a habit of gambling. This long-term threat not only bolsters the civil sphere agents but also solidifies the threat of the gambling lootbox into the public discourse.

The game developers and publishers are well aware of this issue of connecting lootboxes to gambling, as is apparent from their attempts to re-label lootboxes. I will interpret such an attempt made by the EA representative at the UK’s congress hearing in the next chapter. When Dave says: “Developers may argue about their legal definition as gambling, but the ‘boots on the ground’ view show that there is very little difference to children […]” (Hern, 2017), we can see the center argument of the performative battle for the meaning of the lootbox: Are lootboxes gambling? For Dave and, as I will present later, others, including state officials as one of the civil sphere agents, lootbox is gambling. I argue that this phras- ing “boots on the ground” symbolizes the frustration Dave has about the possible future for the debate to turn into. He refers to common sense in

48 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES a way that if lootboxes work like vending machines – they must be gambling. In this possible future, the debate would focus more on the new legal definition of new forms of gambling. This could slowly push the children out of the picture and thus remove the resources that I argued were generated because of the switch towards sacred children from the civil sphere agents. As I will show, this possible future never came to be until the process of societalization finished and the public discourse around lootboxes as gambling, thus a threat to children, kept propelling the societalization forward.

I argued that thanks to this switch in the narrative towards the sacred (Durkheim, 1995), children that must be protected from the gambling addiction that is being portrayed as profane (ibid.) were strong enough to start the societalization process. I also argue that this switch generated enough resources that allowed for different civil sphere institutions (Alexander, 2018) to step in and start the regulatory interventions. But we must now take a step back and acknowledge one thing. Even though we are now in the (T3) – the regulatory interventions started only in four places: Belgium, Netherlands, Hawaii, and the UK as of January 2021. These interventions, as one may expect, proceeded in different timeframes from one another, and thus I will now follow the Netherlands, Belgium, and Hawaii through the (T3) and follow up with the UK at the end. But be aware that by the time UK started (T3), all the other states already finished in (T5), and thus there will be a difference between the years of the articles in the same chapters.

Belgium has finished its investigation into the Star Wars: Battlefront II lootboxes with a resounding “yes, lootboxes are gambling” (Shah, 2017) and proceeded to ban these kinds of lootboxes. Belgian Minister of Justice Koen Geens added: “Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child” (Shah, 2017). We again see that the reported motives for the regulatory interventions are to protect the (sacred) children from (profane) gambling. Geens also said that the commission will now work with the EU to execute a total ban (Shah, 2017) – which is yet to be announced as of January 2021. Shortly after Belgium, Hawaii’s democratic state rep. Chriss Lee announced a detailed plan on how to deal with lootboxes in early December (Sultan, 2017); the battle for the lootbox in 2018 has begun.

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Hawaii started 2018 with the proposed bill (Good, 2018) that would prohibit sales to those under 21 and would require clear labeling on the games that have lootboxes inside them. The Netherlands started enforcing its lootbox ban in June of 2018 with a possible fine of up to approxi- mately $959,000 (€830,000) for not compliance (Arif, 2018). This again shows us that the regulatory interventions are to protect children, and the labeling should help parents to avoid these types of games. I would like to note that ESRB – the Entertainment Software Rating Board in the US – did not see lootboxes as gambling at the end of 2017 (Schreier, 2017b). This makes the push for clearer labeling that the Hawaii bill proposed even more important as it would be a form of civil repair (Alexan- der, 2018) that would come in the (T5). But let us not get ahead of our- selves. While Belgium, Hawaii, and the Netherlands started creating and implementing their regulatory interventions, UK officially started their investigation in 2019 and produced a “damming report,” according to Jim Sterling (2019a). This report, published by the House of Commons, stated that “loot boxes should be considered the same way gambling is and be subject to the same regulations,” and it also argues that “children should be outright barred from accessing them” (Sterling, 2019a). This report also found out that 31% of 11-to-16-year children have paid money to open lootboxes (ibid.). What sets apart this investigation from the ones done in Belgium, Hawaii, and the Netherlands is the sheer amount of evidence they produced and publicly provided. They also crit- icized game publishers for their “lack of honesty and transparency” (ibid.) when they tried to defend their lootbox practices. We will take a closer look at one of the UK hearings in chapter 4.4.1 – for now, let us focus on some parts of the report itself and what game journalist Jim Sterling has to say. One interesting part of the report states that

“They (Gamers) told us that in order to compete, players feel like they need to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of £s worth of packs (Lootboxes) in order to get the best players (Items in the game – football players with different rarities). Children are especially vul- nerable because they lack the maturity to understand that these purchases are manipulative, and their parents may not understand that these purchases are en- tirely unnecessary” (Sterling, 2019a).

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I have added the bold information in the citation to make it more consistent with the terminology I am using in this thesis. What we can read from this is that the importance of children is still present, although much less prominent when we take the whole report into account. Re- gardless the lootboxes are heavily associated with the act of gambling and thus posing a threat to children. This association – the new meaning of the lootbox as a gambling mechanic – I would argue is enough to keep the societalization process going. I argue that if the lootbox becomes the symbol of gambling, and this gambling symbol is still present in videogames that are marketed for children, the discourse around the protection of children from said gambling symbol remains strong. Sterling (2019a) agrees with the report that if lootboxes are gambling, they should be regulated as gambling. This regulation would also be the civil repair need to finish the (T5). Based on these tendencies towards the protection of children from the lootbox, I argue that civil repair could be finished in two ways. First, the civil sphere will come up with regulations around new forms of gambling (lootboxes). These regulations will lead to relabeling existing and future games in accordance with these regulations – meaning that game publishers in their games that include gambling (lootboxes) will have to change the age limit on the legal age for gambling in their respected countries. This understandably will lead to a possible decrease in sales as the regulation would remove a portion of possible customers and will put more pressure on parents to actually use these labels and stay informed on what games their children are playing. Second, the civil sphere will pressure game developers into removing lootboxes altogether from all their videogames. I see this second option as less likely, mostly because of the massive revenue losses the gaming industry would suffer, based on the figures I presented in the introduction. I will also touch upon the question of the presentation lootboxes as “not important to the revenue” (Tassi, 2019) by the game publishers later in this analysis.

For now, what is important that through the process of societalization, the initial lootbox controversy started as an intra-sphere social drama with gamers fighting against gaming developers and publishers for “fairness.” Then the switch happened, and the performative battle shifted over to the protection of sacred children against the profane gambling symbolized by the lootbox. The lootbox became associated with

51 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES gambling, and as I have shown in this chapter – lootbox became gambling. This, of course, is only one side of the story, and we now have to move into (T4) and see what the backlash from the non-civil institutions (game developers and publishers) was.

4.4 T4 – The Backlash from the Non-Civil Institutions

Star Wars: Battlefront II was the spark for the lootbox crisis on its way to becoming a social crisis, but at this point, it is no longer just about Bat- tlefront. It is about microtransaction and lootboxes being associated with gambling and thus harmful to children and in need of regulation. I will now present how the non-civil institutions reacted and, thus, how did the performative battle for the lootbox unfold. To best illustrate this performative battle, I will now interpret part of the UK hearing in which EA representative Kerry Hopkins tries to re-label lootboxes to “surprise mechanics.” I, as well as Jim Sterling (2019a), argue that this move to rather relabel lootboxes than cleanse them of their gambling pollution9 – is a way to avoid the problem of gambling rather than solving it. But let us see what Kerry Hopkins has to say on the matter of lootboxes, their connection to gambling as well, as their ethicality.

4.4.1 The “Surprise Mechanics” Switch? I will be interpreting part of the interview from the “Oral evidence: Im- mersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846” – UK congress hearing that was ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 19 June 2019 (see Appendix A). This document is publicly available from the parliament website, and the full hearing can be watched on parliamentlive.tv10. I will focus on the questions and answers 1141 and 1144 that were asked by committee member Brendan O’Hara and answered by Electronic Arts (EA) representative Kerry Hopkins. These questions concerned the ethicality of lootboxes in EA games. The excerpt can be found in the appendix.

9 For different approach to sacred and profane binaries see Mary Douglas’s Purity and Danger published in 2002 where she traces the words and meaning of dirt in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is than considered out of place – dirty (Douglas, 2002). 10 Full video available on the official parliament website: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/0bf5f000-036e-4cee-be8e-c43c4a0879d4

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I will primarily focus on textual analysis and interpretation. Still, I have seen this hearing as a video first, so I would like to bring specific points that would enhance the interpretation as a whole into this text. Let us start with question 1141.

In this question, Brendan asks: “You may not have a legal duty of care, but I think you would agree that a company such as yourselves should have a code of ethics.” He expresses the concern for the morality of the company that is Electronic Arts. In saying: “you may NOT have a legal duty,” he stresses that this problem of lootboxes is not a problem of law but rather a problem of ethics and morality that may or may not translate to the law afterward. While in the words “company such as yourselves,” Brendan points out the problem of ethics vs. capitalism. This problem is ever-present in our everyday lives, and here it mostly questions the presence of any other mechanics such as ethics rather than just the capitalistic strive for increasing value.

Simply put, Brendan is asking if Electronic Arts even consider their products from other perspectives than in terms of revenue. He follows up with: “We have heard a lot of evidence in this Committee from Dr. Da- vid Zendle, among others, that loot boxes are closely linked to problem gambling, particularly among adolescents.” Here Brendan creates an important link between lootboxes and gambling as he states that the “heard a lot of evidence” that supports lootboxes being gambling. This important link is crucial for the whole argument as what is being questioned is not if lootboxes are ethical, but rather if gambling in games that are for children is ethical. Some of the games with lootboxes that were published by EA are for kids, according to ESRB11 (Entertainment Software Rating Board), with the rating E meaning for Everyone.

The importance of some of the gamers being also kids is even more apparent when we take at the end of the last sentence where he stressed the “particularly among adolescents” part. Brendan then proceeds to ask both companies12: “Do you consider loot boxes to be an ethical feature of

11 Most used example is the FIFA franchise with latest addition – FIFA 2020 being rated as E here: https://www.esrb.org/ratings/36486/FIFA+20/ 12 There are other companies at the hearing, but I chose only the block where Kerry Hopkins is speaking – the other companies did not respond to this question.

53 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES your games?” In this, he acknowledges that lootboxes are part of the games as a whole product, and they are not separable when being discussed. That is an important point to make, as we will see later in the interview where Kerry Hopkins will try to separate and rebrand lootboxes. This intent is apparent even from the following short response following Brendan’s question about the ethicality of lootboxes, where Kerry replies with: “First, we do not call them lootboxes.” She is abruptly interrupted by Brendan as he repeats her question (Q1142): “Whatever term you wish to apply to them, do you consider them ethical?” To which Kerry replies: “That is what we look at as surprise mechanics.” In this little exchange, we can spot a few interesting things. First, Brendan and Kerry both know what they are referring to in different terms is the same thing, and they prefer to use their label. Second, it is imperative for Kerry not to call “them” lootboxes as they are loaded with negative meanings, as is apparent from the link that Brendan established earlier. Third, by re-labeling lootboxes as surprise mechanics, she tries to remove these negative meanings and replace them with positive ones that we can from the rest of her response: “If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy.”

My argument is that Kerry is pushing for re-labeling of lootboxes and that, to the extent of my interpretation, she prepared this line of reasoning beforehand. If I am to be correct, we must address the one dis- crepancy that has just occurred in the response from Kerry Hopkins. How does one prepare a line of reasoning to push lootboxes as surprise toys without checking what the “version of Target” is in the UK? It is Tesco, by the way, as the largest share supermarket store in the UK according to Wikipedia search, I just did. The same search I would expect from Kerry when she was preparing for the hearing before the UK parliament. I am willing to pass this one as stress-related forgetfulness because Kerry seems very nervous when she presents her example with the toys. But let’s move one with her example. Kerry paints a picture of a store department that sells what she calls “surprise toys,” and she em- phasizes the fact that “you will find that this is something people enjoy.” Shen then goes on to repeat it: “They enjoy surprises.” Surprise toys and surprise mechanics are the links that Kerry wants to establish, and that clashes with the connection between lootboxes and gambling that Bren- dan created before. I would venture that: Why does Kerry bother? The

54 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES gamblers I know enjoy gambling, although it is true that some of them enjoy it a bit too much. Still, I understand from this interview that gambling is purely an evil act that is harmful to the individual. Thus, any association with it is problematic and must be resolved – especially if kids are to be the gamblers in videogames.

This brings me to the argument Kerry just proposed here. Even if “surprise mechanics” are enjoyable and to be enjoyed, it does not mean they are ethical. Gambling must be enjoyable; otherwise, why would people do it? Why would people do it to such an extent that we have gambling laws and even classified gambling addiction? The point I am trying to make is that when something is enjoyable, such as gambling, it does not mean it is also not harmful. Kerry then argues that these surprise mechanics were “part of toys for years” and that the way they (EA) have implemented them in their games is “quite ethical and quite fun; it is enjoyable to people.” Here we can see the connection she tries to make – ethical and quite fun, plus it is enjoyable. Kerry’s line of reasoning is that surprise mechanics (lootboxes for the rest of us) were part of the toy industry for years and that they are now just being implemented into the videogame industry while retaining their positive traits, such as being fun, enjoyable, and most importantly ethical. They are not only that; they are also quite ethical.

We must stop here and give this term “quite ethical” a second thought. I would argue that things are either ethical or not; I mean, I even read theory from Jeffrey Alexander (2006) that builds upon the concept of ethics and that there are binary oppositions of things – such as those that are and that are not ethical – that help us tie the society together. What does Kerry mean by “quite ethical”? Are there examples of surprise mechanics that are more ethical than others? I understand that under pressure, it is easy to make such mistakes in your speech, but these “mistakes” are what we are looking for in the interpretation. Was there a hidden meaning behind it? I would say that judging from the intonation and what words she stressed, she just wanted to empower the words ethical and fun together and as equals. This argument would fall in line with the reasoning that what is ethical may be fun and enjoyable as ethicality is just another positive attribute that is being negotiated.

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Kerry then states that: “We agree with the UK Gambling Commis- sion, the Australian gambling commission, and many other gambling commissions that they are not gambling, and we also disagree that there is evidence that shows it leads to gambling.” Here we can see a return to the link between lootboxes and gambling as Kerry stresses out that even the UK Gambling Commission stated that lootboxes are not gambling. She also disregards any evidence that was brought in favor of lootboxes being gambling. I must ask myself here, why does she bring, be it not explicitly, lootboxes back into the discussion? She spends the first half of her answer convincing us that there are no lootboxes, only surprise mechanics in EA’s games. She was trying to re-label lootboxes to shy away from the negative meanings that were associated with them. Yet now she argues that they (lootboxes) are not gambling. I do not think this “they” could be interpreted as surprise mechanics because surprise mechanics were part of the toy industry for years, and they are not gambling as they are quite ethical and quite fun. At least, that is what Kerry was saying until now. Thus, I conclude that lootboxes are the “they” that was associated with gambling and what Kerry is referring to. This also strengthens my argument that both Brendan and Kerry are using the terms lootboxes and surprise mechanics interchangeably during their conversation with the same meaning – they are both the same.

Kerry concludes her answer to question 1142 as follows: “Instead, we think it is like many other products that people enjoy in a very healthy way. They like the element of surprise.” She again reassures us that lootboxes (applying the same reasoning to “it” as I did to previous “they”) are enjoyable in a healthy way. Here we see that she is aware of the fact that not all things that are enjoyable cannot be harmful, for example, gambling. She decides to add that lootboxes and not only enjoyable but also healthy (for kids) to use — these people “like the element of surprise” that is associated with Kinder Eggs and such. I think we can agree that such a feeling of surprise can be achieved even with a virtual item. I do see a difference here that was not mentioned, though.

The virtual lootboxes are part of the videogame. They are ever-present during the launch and sometimes even during the playtime. When you leave Tesco or Target, you are no longer in the vicinity of the surprise toys, and that I think it lowers the need to interact with them; you simply forget. The same could be said about the pack with football players.

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When you encounter them in the store, and you are a collector, there will be a high likelihood that you will buy some of them. Maybe even during your day, you think to yourself you should go a buy some, but that would require you to go to the store and buy the packs there physically. There are no such barriers in videogames, you can buy lootboxes with a click of a button, and it takes just a few seconds. You are rewarded for doing so with visually pleasing animations even during your purchase. Based on that, I would argue that there may be a possibility that lootboxes and equal to physical surprise toys and that the fact they are so easily acces- sible makes them more prone to abuse by people with gambling problems. Take kids, for example; I assume that most kids play on parent’s accounts as there are different age requirements for games, so the kid cannot always have its account. Do these accounts usually have a credit card attached to them as it is more convenient for parents to buy themselves new games – think in what other places you have your credit card saved, Amazon, eBay, Twitch, Steam? Then buying lootboxes in-game becomes even easier; you just click and buy. Here I see the biggest problem of all. How does the average 6-12-year-old distinguish the BUY (for real money) and BUY (for in-game currency such as gold) when there is no universal guide on how they look or how they are labeled? They cannot. Therefore I argue that virtual lootboxes appear to be more dangerous to kids and why their ethicality should be called into question and why I argue that Kerry is just trying to re-label lootboxes as surprise mechanics while avoiding the ethicality question altogether. I think it is even more apparent when Brendan O’Hara clearly asks: “Just to be absolutely clear, you have no ethical qualms whatsoever about your loot boxes or surprise mechanics.” And Kerry Hopkins responds with: “I think you are re-char- acterizing my language. What I said is that I think the way we have implemented our FIFA Ultimate Team packs is ethical.” She is no longer certain for a moment in her answers. She “thinks” that they (EA) implemented their FIFA Ultimate Team packs (lootboxes) in an ethical way. Responding in this manner does not strengthen her argument; it rather destroys it. When asked by Brendan, “Other than FIFA, are you equally comfortable and relaxed about the other games that you provide?” she corrects herself and responds confidently that: “For all of the games we have on the market that have a randomized content mechanic—a surprise mechanic, a loot box—I have no qualms that they are implemented in an unethical way.” Here we again see the diversion from her original line of reasoning that lootboxes are something different than surprise

57 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES mechanics. She once again uses these terms in the same sentence interchangeably with the same meaning – they are both lootboxes, and they are the same. But she assures us that they are implemented ethically. That is truly a relief. Relief that I do not share, as I argued just a few sen- tences before. The question of ethicality was successfully avoided, for now.

This concludes the interpretation of the interview from the “Oral evidence: Immersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846” – UK congress hearing. As we saw from the UK report (Sterling, 2019a), this switch was not successful and accomplished only more distrust from the civil sphere towards game publishers and developers. While Blizzard, Valve, other game developers, and publishers quickly gave up this battle in Belgium and the Netherlands and removed any lootboxes – EA tried to argue against the accusation that they have gambling in their games (Taylor, 2019). To summarize, the backlash from the non-civil institutions focused on separating the lootbox from the gambling label and rephrasing lootboxes as safe and fun for children but ultimately failed in Belgium (Taylor, 2019) and the Netherlands (Coulson, 2020). In the UK, I argue that this performative battle was lost, but we are yet to see the final social repair, and that brings us to the last time state (T5) of the societalization model – the social repair or stand-off state.

4.5 T5 – Social Repair or Stand-off

We have now arrived in the (T5). Here, the resolution to the now possible social crisis will be made. The first option is the stand-off (Alexander, 2018) position – the performative battle was not (yet) won by either side, and thus, there is no civil repair. This means no new policies or changes in behavior and attitudes towards lootboxes. This also could mean that social drama will be forgotten with time, and no resolution will come, meaning the process of societalization has failed, and the social drama did not become a social crisis. The second option is the civil repair and the return to the stable state (T1). This would mean that there were new policies or changes in behavior and attitudes towards lootboxes and that the societalization process has succeeded. This also means that social drama has become a social crisis with long-lasting effects on civil and

58 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES non-civil spheres. The state of both spheres returns to (T1), and reciprocity is restored (Alexander, 2018). Let us now see if the lootbox crisis remains a social drama or will become a social crisis.

4.5.1 The End for the Netherlands, Belgium, and Hawaii You may have now noticed that I did not speak of Hawaii as much as Bel- gium, Netherlands, and the UK. This is because Hawaii civil agents (senators) failed to advance the bill that was supposed to regulate lootboxes (Brestovansky, 2018). Why? As Brestovansky (2018) from Hawaii Trib- une-Herald states: “Two House bills and one Senate bill relating to video games all failed to meet final deadlines since being introduced in January, while a second Senate bill was amended from its original purpose to a completely unrelated subject.” The only bill that was passed concerned the requirement for franchisees to disclose if they are not participating in promotions of the franchise (Brestovansky, 2018). This outcome was surprising to me as the Hawaii senator was one of the most vocal ones (Sultan 2017), and I would argue he helped to push the discourse of pro- tecting children into the civil sphere. Nevertheless, Hawaii thus concludes in the (T3) as there was no major backlash from non-civil institutions needed. The societalization process thus failed in Hawaii and, for that matter, for the whole US as no other state in the US even proposed a bill or any solution that would regulate lootboxes to this day (beginning of January 2021). As no official statement was given, we can only specu- late why did Hawaii deem the problem of lootboxes as gambling non-important compared to its European neighbors. Speaking of Europe, let us see how the societalization concluded there.

Belgium passed the lootbox ban on March 27th, 2018 – declaring lootboxes gambling and prohibiting their use in games distributed in Bel- gium under a threat of fine (Tassi, 2019). I argue that this concludes the societalization process for Belgium in (T5) and that the civil repair (Al- exander, 2018) was accomplished in the form of new legislation and new attitudes towards lootboxes as gambling. The civil sphere and the gaming sphere regain the reciprocity between them and return to (T1). I would like to illustrate the importance of such civil repair on a statement made by EA after they complied with the regulation – as the last game publisher and developer:

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“We seek to bring choice, fairness, value, and fun to our players in all our games. In addition to providing players options in how they play, we include pack probabilities in our games for the transparency players want to make informed content choices. While we are taking this action, we do not agree with Belgian authorities' interpretation of the law, and we will continue to seek more clarity on the matter as we go forward. The impact of this change to FIFA Ultimate Team in Belgium is not material to our financial performance” (Tassi, 2019)

EA starts their statement by reassuring us that they have the best in their minds for the gamer – assuring us that fairness, value, and fun are their top priorities. This corresponds with the rhetoric Kerry Hopkins applied to the UK representatives, and I argue that it makes the UK committee statement on how dishonest gaming publishers appear to be even stronger. Tassi (2019) and Sterling (2019a) also agree that specifically EA for Tassi, and every big game publisher for Sterling, appear disingenuous in the gaming sphere discourse. As Tassi (2019) correctly points out, the “probabilities” that EA claims to include in their games for transparency are also something that was put into their games because countries – notably China in 2017 (Gartenberg, 2017) started mandating it. This makes EA appear dishonest and disingenuous in the eyes of gamers and public officials. EA also takes a stand here and says that even though they are complying, they disagree with Belgian authorities on the interpretation of the law. To “seek out more clarity” could simply be trans- lated into my narrative as: “this time winning the performative battle over the lootbox.” This may come to be, but for now, Belgium classifies lootboxes as gambling, and so does its law. The last line in the statement is the most interesting. EA claims that the removal of lootboxes (FIFA Ul- timate Team packs) did not affect their financial performance. When we take into account that Ultimate Team lootboxes earned EA $1.38 billion (Armughanuddin, 2019) in the financial year 2019 – then losing even just one country should have at least some effect on the financial performance in Belgium. Thus, I argue that this more of a push towards the rhetoric that lootboxes do not cost that much money and thus are insignificant in the financial report. This is to oppose the discourse that is filled with stories about kids spending fortunes on lootboxes and racking

60 THE SOCIETALIZATION OF LOOTBOXES up debts for their parents or keepers, as I argued at the beginning of this chapter. Based on these findings, I would expect EA to push for the rein- troduction of lootboxes into their games in Belgium in the near future. But for now, the societalization process of the lootbox concluded in civil repair in Belgium and remained in (T1).

The same outcome is in the Netherlands. On 29 October 2020, The Hague’s district court ruled that lootboxes qualify as a game of chance under the Dutch Betting and Gaming Act (BGA) (Seinen, Schwiddessen, and Mansfeld, 2020). This classified lootboxes officially as gambling and required game developers and publishers to comply with the gambling regulations inside the BGA. The fine if affected companies fail to comply was set up to 5 million euros. This concerned only EA as other companies complied with the law (Coulson, 2020). EA would be fined 500.000 euros a week (starting on the 19th of November 2020) if it did not stop selling the FIFA Ultimate team lootboxes (Coulson, 2020). EA's Benelux Country Manager, Dirk Scholing, told Video Games Chronicle: "We are appealing this decision, and we seek to avoid a situation impacting the ability of Dutch players to fully experience and enjoy FIFA Ultimate Team" (Coul- son, 2020). In this statement, we can see that, again, EA stresses that they have the best in mind for gamers as, without the FIFA Ultimate lootboxes, the Dutch gamers would not be able to “fully experience the game.” I was unable to find any public mention of the resolution to this appeal – it may very well be still in progress, or maybe EA decided that 500.000 euros a week would also not influence their financial performance in the Neth- erlands. Nevertheless, the societalization process concluded in civil repair (T5) as new law and attitudes towards lootboxes were implemented, and thus the Netherlands returned to the stable state (T1). Now only the UK remains.

4.5.2 Will the United Kingdom Arrive at T5? Even after the damming congress report, the UK still waits before implementing any of the proposed regulations. This would mean that for now, the societalization process in the UK did arrive at (T5) but in the stand- off. No civil repair (Alexander, 2018) is present as of now (January 2021), but I would like to cover some other civil agents that exercised their civil power and spoken against gambling represented in lootboxes.

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Earlier last year, NHS mental health director Claire Murdoch called for a crackdown on lootboxes (Yin-Poole, 2020). She argued that:

“Frankly, no company should be setting kids up for addiction by teaching them to gamble on the content of these loot boxes. No firm should sell to children loot box games with this element of chance, so yes, those sales should end. Young people's health is at stake, and although the NHS is stepping up with these new, innovative services available to families through our Long Term Plan, we cannot do this alone, so other parts of society must do what they can to limit risks and safe- guard children's wellbeing” (Yin-Poole, 2020).

We can see that the switch towards sacred children that need protection from profane gambling in for of lootboxes is still present in the UK discourse. She encourages regulations to prevent ongoing damage to young people’s health and highlights the new and innovative services to families whose children have been affected. This corresponds to what Anne Longfield stated for The Guardian near the end of 2019:

“Children have told us they worry they are gambling when they buy loot boxes, and it’s clear some children are spending hundreds of pounds chasing their losses. I want the government to classify loot boxes in games like FIFA as a form of gambling. A maximum daily spend limit for children would also be reassuring for parents and children themselves” (Weale, 2019).

We can see that the discourse of lootboxes as gambling permuted even into children as gamers, and the call for regulation is getting stronger. Based on this, I would argue that the UK will eventually arrive at some sort of civil repair as it was in Belgium or the Netherlands. The process of societalization in the UK shares similarities with these countries, and I argue that it is the question of when rather than if. But as we all know now, the UK does have two other pressing matters, the Brexit and Covid- 19 epidemic, that probably take priority over deciding how to regulate lootboxes as gambling. As of now, the UK is in the stand-off (T5), and time will tell if they move towards civil repair; and I will mark the societalization process in the UK as successful alongside Belgium and Netherlands.

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To end on a more positive note, I would like to cite a reaction from Jim Sterling when he heard about the fact that Dr. Smith, lord bishop of St Albans and representative of the Church of England, condemned lootboxes in The Telegraph (Smith, 2019). Sterling, a videogame journalist, had this to say: “Now the goals of the Church and goals of myself are not really the same in general. But I do believe this story means I get to say that: ‘Jesus Christ disapproves of lootboxes’” (Sterling, 2019b).

63 CONCLUSION

5 Conclusion

Let me now summarize what I have done in my master thesis. First, I have explored the contemporary gaming theory and the theory of lootboxes. Second, I have explained Alexander’s (2018) theory of societalization and also his theory of the civil sphere (Alexander, 2006). I have then described a concept of the gaming sphere based on Alexander’s (2018) general non-civil sphere to help other readers that might not be familiar with the gaming discourse to easily navigate inside it. Third, I have introduced my dataset and the methodology of the thick description as well as the interpretative analysis. Lastly, I have analyzed the lootbox controversy using the societalization model to answer my research question: “Why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis?” The answer to this question started to fully unfold first in the (T2) – the beginning of societalization.

So, why did the Battlefront II lootbox controversy become a social crisis? As you can remember from the second chapter, for the social drama to become a social crisis, it first needs to initiate code switching (Alexander, 2018). I had identified this switch when the lootbox ceased to be primarily associated with the value of fairness and switched to the value of the sacred (Alexander, 2006) child. Lootboxes started to be heavily associated with gambling, which I argued is a profane value, and this the protection of the sacred child from the profane lootbox started the purification crusade or, as Alexander (2018) would put it – the way to civil repair. This switch helped the lootbox controversy to break from the gaming sphere and into the civil sphere. Engaging civil sphere agents – the journalists, juries, senators, and commissioners – the lootbox controversy entered the time state (T3). The civil power (Alexander, 2018) generated from the outrage that lootboxes are gambling and they are in the videogames marketed towards children combined with the multiply- ing stories of children spending thousands of dollars on lootboxes and racking up debt for their parents. This civil power was then used by the civil sphere agents to engage in regulatory interventions such as committees to investigate lootboxes in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK or the fast proposal of the lootbox regulation bill by the Hawaii legislators. Even though Hawaii legislators were at the forefront of the regulation in the beginning and state rep. Chriss Lee (Sultan, 2017) really pushed the

64 CONCLUSION

“protection of children from lootboxes” rhetoric into the gaming discourse – Hawaii ultimately failed. Why? Hawaii legislators were unable to push the bill that would regulate lootboxes into legislation, and thus there was no civil repair. Taking into account that in Hawaii, there was no significant backlash from the game developers – as no sanctions were threatening them – the process of societalization stopped in (T3) and was not a success. The lootbox controversy remained a social drama for Hawaii and the US. Although the processes of socialization failed in Ha- waii, the ESRB did at least recently added labels (Peters, 2020) on games that informed about the inclusion of in-game purchases with random acquisition – lootboxes. This, however, did not change the labeling system and age requirements, so in the sense of protection of children against lootboxes, there was done little as they still can legally acquire games with lootboxes in them. Thus, I still consider the process of societalization of lootboxes in the US as a failed one.

The situation in Belgium and the Netherlands was quite different. I have shown how civil sphere agents pushed for regulatory intervention in the form of laws that banned the use of lootboxes in both countries. The backlash from the non-civil institutions (Alexander, 2018) was about the performative battle for the lootbox. The game publishers and developers (non-civil institutions) tried to change the gaming discourse around lootboxes as gambling towards lootboxes as safe and fun for children. They lost this battle, and thus the civil repair in Belgium and the Netherlands succeeded. New laws were introduced to “purify” the threat of the lootbox. The process of societalization of the lootbox was successful. That brings us to the last state in my analysis, the UK.

The UK followed a similar suit as Belgium and the Netherlands at the beginning of societalization. The civil power (Alexander, 2008) generated by the outrage that gambling is marketed to children allowed the legislators to start taking action. One of these actions was the hearing that produced the “Oral evidence: Immersive and addictive technologies, HC 1846” on 19 June 2019. If you did not, I highly recommend watching the hearing to truly experience what I have interpreted in the “Surprise Mechanics” chapter (4.4.1). This hearing, as I have shown, was a great inside look into the performative battle for the lootbox. I’ve shown how the EA representative Kerry Hopkins tried to re-label lootboxes as surprise mechanics – similar to a kinder egg. If she succeeded, this would

65 CONCLUSION help the game developers and publishers to alter the discourse around the lootbox towards a more child-friendly, safe, and fun meaning of the lootbox – just like the kinder eggs are, at least according to Kerry Hop- kins. I argued that she did not succeed, and thus the investigations continued in the UK with major figures such as NHS mental health director Claire Murdoch (Yin-Poole, 2020), the Children's Commissioner for Eng- land Anne Longfield (Weale, 2019), and Dr. Smith, lord bishop of St Al- bans and representative of the Church of England (Smith, 2019) con- demning lootboxes as gambling and solidifying their meaning in the gaming discourse. Thus, I concluded that the process of societalization of lootboxes did arrive at (T5) in the UK and is still in the stand-off, and time will tell if they return into the (T1) with the civil repair or not. Recently EA announced that they would implement spending limits on their FIFA lootboxes, which Michael Bell labeled as “EA's Change May as Well AD- MIT Gambling” (Bellular News, 2020). This solidifies my conclusion that the process of societalization of the lootbox is still happening in the UK, and we can already see changes in the company legislation, if not in the state legislations. This is understandable considering that the UK is cur- rently going through Brexit aftermath and the Covid-19 pandemic – which I argue both probably shifted the attention of the civil sphere from the lootboxes. This considerably reduces the civil power (Alexander, 2018) the legislators have, and even though they probably are working on legislation that would deal with the lootbox – they are doing so without constant public reporting on the progress. This brings us to the end of my analysis of the lootbox controversy, and let me add a few finishing paragraphs.

First, what are the implications of my analysis? I have talked about the conclusions for the four countries, but my analysis can be extended beyond that. I’ve shown how the gaming sphere interacts with the civil sphere when problems arise that threaten society as a whole. Lootboxes are just one of the many problems, such as the relation with violent behavior and virtual worlds with fully functioning “unreal” social institutions, as I discussed in the theory part. My analysis should serve as a starting point when engaging the questions about the gaming sphere and how it relates to the civil sphere. The situation around lootboxes in the UK is still evolving and, in many states, remains untouched, but when the time comes, and lootboxes will become once again scrutinized in the society, I hope my analysis will help other cultural scientists to better grasp

66 CONCLUSION the inevitable starting point – the gaming sphere. I also hope that my analysis expanded the culturally-sociological outlook on lootboxes and specifically brought another outlook on how to conceptualize the gaming sphere – culturally, but with a universal gaming sphere in mind as opposed to what Shaw (2010) done when conceptualizing gamers and gaming.

Second, I have shown that through the thick description and interpretative analysis, we can understand the gaming sphere as an autonomous concept, and we should treat it as such – same as the strong program in cultural sociology (Alexander and Smith, 2001) treats culture as autonomous. This approach, as I described in the theory and methodology chapters, has much to offer to theorize gaming and gamers, and thus gaming theory should not remain a sole domain of the quantitative studies or the sociology of culture as dominant approaches. My concept of the gaming sphere shows that there is a lot of social knowledge to unpack when engaging gaming and gamers on a theoretical level. I conceptual- ized the gaming sphere as a useful toolbox for any cultural scientist that wants to grasp this relatively new world. This brings me to the question of why even study the gaming world and conceptualize the gaming sphere? Because the gaming world and the gaming industry is massive. As I discussed in the introduction, the gaming industry overshadowed the music and movie industries in 2018, and it keeps growing rapidly. Gaming evolved from entertainment for a few to social activity of the masses – and with that, it validates the interest of sociology. Gaming is now a social activity with its subcultures, social dramas, the feeling of fulfilment of goals and achievements, and as I have shown in my analysis, the major implication for the civil sphere when one such drama becomes a full-blown social crisis. This was my main reason for conceptualizing the gaming sphere as a sphere that deserves to stand on its own and as a toolbox to help us understand the world of gaming through the lens of cultural sociology.

The lootbox controversy is just one of the contemporary problems that are present in the gaming sphere, but it is the most under-researched one when it comes to the cultural, sociological perspective. I hoped to rectify that and to show that cultural sociology has much to say in the way of analyzing lootboxes and social crisis while also opening

67 CONCLUSION doors to more research on the broader topic of microtransaction in videogames and their impact on society using my concept of the gaming sphere. With this, I will point out also the major shortcoming of this thesis, and that is the exclusion of Asia, Africa, and Australia. This shortcoming is, of course, an opportunity to study the meanings of lootboxes and microtransactions in those cultures, especially considering that China is the biggest market for gaming. To leave on a positive note, I do believe that studying the meanings of lootboxes will eventually help us better understand them as a phenomenon as well as helping legislators to approach this topic to protect marginalized groups such as people with dis- abilities and children.

68 SOURCES

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77 APPENDIX A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT HC 1846

Appendix A Partial transcript HC 1846

Q1141 Brendan O’Hara: You may not have a legal duty of care, but I think you would agree that a company such as yourselves should have a code of ethics. We have heard a lot of evidence in this Committee from Dr David Zendle, among others, that loot boxes are closely linked to problem gambling, particularly among adolescents. Can I ask both companies: do you consider loot boxes to be an ethical feature of your games?

Kerry Hopkins: First, we do not call them loot boxes.

Q1142 Brendan O’Hara: Whatever term you wish to apply to them, do youconsider them ethical?

Kerry Hopkins: That is what we look at as surprise mechanics. It is important to look at this. If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. It is something that has been part of toys for years, whether it is Kinder eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise!. We think the way we have implemented those kinds of mechanics—and FIFA, of course, is our big one, our FIFA Ultimate Team and our packs—is quite ethical and quite fun; it is enjoyable to people. We agree with the UK Gambling Commission, the Australian gambling commission and many other gambling commissions that they are not gambling, and we also disagree that there is evidence that shows it leads to gambling. Instead, we think it is like many other products that people enjoy in a very healthy way. They like the element of surprise.

78 APPENDIX A PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT HC 1846

Q1143 Brendan O’Hara: Just to be absolutely clear, you have no ethical qualms whatsoever about your loot boxes or surprise mechanics.

Kerry Hopkins: I think you are re-characterising my language. What I said is that I think the way we have implemented our FIFA Ultimate Team packs is ethical.

Q1144 Brendan O’Hara: Other than FIFA, are you equally comfortable and relaxed about the other games that you provide?

Kerry Hopkins: For all of the games we have on the market that have a randomised content mechanic—a surprise mechanic, a loot box—I have no qualms that they are implemented in an unethical way.

79 INDEX

Appendix B Guiding Timeline

80 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

Appendix C Lootbox GIF interpretation

What are the meanings behind “a Lootbox”? What is “a Lootbox”? The latter can be explained relatively simply. Lootboxes are virtual boxes that contain virtual items that are somehow beneficial or desirable for a video game player to have in their possession inside a specific videogame. These items usually come in different rarities based on the chance they can “drop” from a Lootbox. These rarities are generally gray for common, blue for rare, and orange for legendary. To obtain a Lootbox, player must either obtain it through gameplay or, more commonly, they are bought in larger quantities with virtual or real currency. The former is a subject of interpretation. What are the meanings behind a Lootbox? I will offer you here an interpretation of a Lootbox. Specifically, it will be the Loot- box from a game called Overwatch, created, and published by Activision Blizzard. To unpack the meanings behind the Lootbox, I chose to interpret an animated GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) file that I also separated into four sequential images, as shown below (larger sizes and the original animated GIF file can be found in the appendix). I will be using an iconographical approach proposed by Panofsky (1955) in his book: Meaning in the Visual Arts. This method uses three stages. First, I will do a pre-iconographical description of the GIF, where I extract the factual and expressional meanings (Panofsky 1955), such as visible objects and their forms. Second, I will do an iconographical analysis where I extract conventional meanings, such as images, stories, and allegories (Panofsky 1955). Lastly, I will do an iconological interpretation where I extract the intrinsic meaning from the world of symbolical values (Panofsky 1955). I will also interject with a theory from Jeffrey Alexander on Civil Spheres (2006, 2019) during the interpretation phase, as I want to distinguish the meanings between the Civil Sphere (the society at large) and Uncivil Sphere – in this case, the Gaming Sphere.

81 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

Picture 1-4 and GIF file 5 The opening of the regular Overwatch Lootbox.

Pre-iconographical description Let us start with the background in the picture (1) – what you see when you are about to open the Overwatch Lootbox. Then we move through the animation itself, where I describe the transitions and changes that are happening on the scene. There is a metal or concrete ramp that leads outside the image in the top right corner. Next to it, there are some concrete buildings or walls of a building that are brown in color that con- trasts with the grey floor and ramp in their vicinity. We can see that the wall closest to the ramp has symbols “WP-G” painted in large bold white color on it. There is a small space between the ramp and the brown wall with the “WP-G” symbols on it. There are some white, blue, and gray boxes in the upper left corner. The gray box seems to have a dent in its lower right corner and some ineligible text on its lower middle side. The upper white box has an engraved slim rectangle on its right side. The blue box seems to have a white or gray outline and is connected to the upper white box and the lower white box that, in turn, is connected to the gray box via a tube. These boxes are placed on some kind of a pedestal or lift- ing ramp that has what looks like a bolt in both of its visible corners. Be- tween the boxes and the brown building, there is some alleyway or pas- sage that leads outside the picture and through the middle top of the image.

82 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

There is a painted orange quarter of a circle in the lower-left part of the image that covers almost all of the bottom half of the image. This circle is divided into three smaller orange circles, all with different fea- tures. The most inner circle is just orange in color, and its outline is engraved to the ground with a slightly darker orange color. The middle circle has two purple squares with one rounded corner painted near the intersection with the inner circle. The outer circle is outlined with dark gray stripes. The circles seem to be elevated, going down from the inner to the outer circle.

In the foreground, we can see some UI (user interface) elements. There is a chatbox in the lower-left corner with three ineligible messages in it. Under the chatbox, there is a box to enter new chat messages into. There is the BACK button in the lower right corner. There is a big orange button with the label “OPEN LOOT BOX” and a big blue “SHOP” button in the middle of the bottom of the image. We can also see a mouse pointer near the “SHOP” button. Slightly above these two big buttons are two buttons with labels “PREV” and “NEXT” separated with a text that show the number of Lootboxes. We can also see at the beginning of the GIF animation that there is a number 965 with some kind of a currency symbol in front of it in the upper right corner. There is also a blue box with a white icon of two simplified persons next to some kind of a paper stamp and ineligible text.

Finally, there is the Lootbox in the center of the screen, sitting on the middle orange circle. It is a box with slightly rounded edges that we can separate into three parts. First, there is the base of the box that is a darker gray color with a blue engraved strip in the middle of each of the visible sides. These stripes look like a zip or cable tie or an industrial machine belt with a small orange clip on top. Second, there is the upper portion of the box that is a white rectangle with an elevated upper side that has a circular hole in it. This white part connects with the lower gray part on the orange clips, and we can see that there is some small ineligible text in the upper right corner of its front side. The third part is the disks that are inside the box, with one visible on top through the circular hole in the upper white part of the Lootbox. They seem to be held in place with gray metal clips, and there is a visible glow shining around them and from the small orange clips on the sides. Now we will go through the description of changes through the GIF file.

83 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

When the button “OPEN LOOT BOX” is visibly pressed by the mouse pointer, it slowly fades in color, and the Lootbox itself starts to compress down before exploding in a flash of white light that covers almost the whole screen (picture (2)). The camera then quickly pans up, revealing that the brown building was a base for a rocket platform lift. It also indicates that there is a giant space rocket above the white, blue, and gray boxes with similar coloring, going from gray bottom to light blue middle and white outline and top. There are also some black cables or tubes connecting the lift and the rocket. In the background, we can glimpse a clear sky. There is some rock formation in the right part of the picture (3) now. We can now also see the disks that were ejected from the Lootbox. There are four disks in total. Two of them are gray, one is blue, and one is purple. The blue and purple disks both have a visible light-trace following them, each with their respective color.

The discs seem to have stopped in the air, and they begin to fall as the camera sharply zooms back down, revealing the whole scene. Back here on the original stage from the picture (1), just slightly zoomed out, we see that the discs have landed on the orange circles. Behind them, we can also see the shadow of the rocket now clearly visible. We can see that the purple disc is noticeably larger than the blue and gray discs. Let us now focus on what appeared above the discs in the colorful glow with their respective colors. There is a dark purple rectangle between two thick green lines above the blue disc. This dark purple rectangle has an ornamental skull with lower jaw missing on it. Then there is a spray- painted picture of a woman with long pink hair in a combat suit and let- ters “GG” and some other Korean characters below her. The can of spray can be seen below them, just above the first gray disc from the left. Next, there is a person in a combat suit with a skeletal mask holding two shot- guns across their chest, standing on the larger purple disk. This person has a belt with shotgun shells on their waist, and they are wearing a cloak. Lastly, there is some spray-painted emblem that consists of two vertical black lines that are converging slightly towards each other, and from them are three white stripes protruding towards the middle of the symbol above the last gray disc. There is also a can of paint that just finished spray-painting this emblem. With that, I think I have also spray- painted the animation into your mind so we can dive deep into its analysis.

84 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

Iconographical analysis There is a clear industrial-space motive present here with the rocket and its ramp on concrete buildings that have what appears to be descriptor written on one of its sides. The Lootbox exploding the discs upwards also resembles a rocket shooting up to the stars just like in some cartoons where the rocket first slightly collapses down into itself and then afterward rapidly expands outwards and up with a flash when taking off. Then there is also the motive of a video game. There are the chatbox windows and the social window, also known as friends list. We have the UI elements that are above the imagery, the buttons that are calling us to do some actions, and the currency symbol and number of Lootboxes re- minding us of our current status in-game. There is a blue button that in- vites us to the game’s shop to spend our currency that has been so con- veniently shown on the same screen. Most importantly, there is the start of the whole show – the “OPEN LOOT BOX” button. Pressing it starts the entire spectacle of flashes, rapid movements, and colors. This brings us to the main motive of this GIF animation – the Lootbox motive.

The Lootbox motive can be compared to the Kinder Egg motive or a surprise toy in a food motive such as McDonald’s, or even the plastic packs with Pokémon or sports players. I will refer to these motives as the surprise mechanic motive for now, and then I will focus on the few dif- ferences the Lootbox motive brings into the mix. The surprise mechanics motive is a motive of suspension, spectacle, and climax. First, there is the suspension of holding the unopened pack, box, Kinder Egg, etc. in your hands and waiting for it to be opened and revealing its contents to you. Second, there is the spectacle. For example, you start opening the pack of Pokémon cards. You begin slowly ripping the precut portion of the pack while peeking inside and getting a glimpse of what cards with what bor- ders you might get in a few seconds. Then you pull them slowly and care- fully from the pack to check them out. Or maybe you rip the packaging open like a madman, and the cards begin to fly everywhere on the table or floor.

You may have done this in the presence of your friends or family to share this spectacle with them. Lastly, there is, as it goes, the climax. You check the cards one by one, feeling good or bad depending on what did you get, contemplating the overall value you got from the pack, and

85 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION if you maybe should buy another one and hopefully get something better. The Lootbox motive differs in two points, the “virtuality” attribute and the possibilities of a spectacle that should enrich the climax. First is the “virtuality” attribute, meaning that these items you get from a Lootbox are only in-game items – they do not have a physical form. Second, the spectacle can be made much more grandiose as it is inside a graphically pleasing videogame with lots of effects and sounds of ripping, tearing, opening that enriches the climax experience. We can see that in our example. The suspension is present until you press the “OPEN LOOTBOX” button; maybe during the game, you earned this Lootbox or after you bought them from the in-game shop. Then there is the spectacle, the Lootbox collapses slightly and then explodes in a flash of light, spitting the discs into the air and slightly lowering the suspension as you start to see the colors that indicate the rarities as I mentioned in the introduction. The suspension is all gone as the spectacle finishes, and you know what you got, and that is the climax. Now you can contemplate how well you spent your time in-game or your (or your parents’) hard-earned cash. There is also a motive of the day, where judging by the length and size of the rocket’s shadow, it is sunset, which brings the blurry shadows and calm of the evening with it but let us instead focus on the iconological interpretation.

Iconological interpretation What are the meanings behind a Lootbox? To answer that, I will interpret the meanings behind the lootbox motive using two different perspectives with the help of Alexander’s The Civil Sphere (2006) and his Societaliza- tion model (2019). The Civil Sphere (Society) perspective and the Un- Civil Sphere (Gaming Sphere) perspective. Let’s start with the Gaming Sphere perspective.

The Gaming sphere consists mainly of three groups – the game producers (developers and publishers), the gamers (players of videogames), and the game journalists. I will focus primarily on gamers and later compare them to society as a whole in the Civil Sphere. What meanings are there in the lootbox for gamers? The lootbox motive plays strongly on the rewarding spectacle that should satisfy and motivate the gamers to want to relive it over and over again. You want to get the best reward possible as a gamer. This will put you in a battle of constant eval-

86 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION uation of risks and rewards. The trouble is the chance of losing your currency to a lootbox that brings you little to no satisfaction with the items you get. But how many should you buy? Maybe one more and then you are done, for today? These lootboxes are given the meaning of a reward that is not certain. They are like slot machines in a casino that promise you great winnings with every other spin you take, and in return, they want just a little bit of money. Lootbox is like a slot machine – it gives you the thrill of gambling. There is one major difference that we must account for. Lootboxes are virtual, and they give you only virtual items. These items are not bound by physical production rules, meaning there can be an infinite number of them with no additional expense to the producer of these lootboxes. This is unlike the real-world gambling where there are physical things involved, and the real currency or items you can win are finite.

In the virtual world, you are limited only by the amount of time or real-world currency you are willing to spend, and as I analyzed in the previous chapter, you are motivated to spend more and more to get that satisfying climax. Another interpretation could be that the lootbox is a time-saver that gives you the option to pay real money to skip parts of the game-saving time. Practically you are paying not to play the game. This brings us to another meaning hidden behind the lootboxes – the fair- play feeling. Some lootboxes allow players to gain an advantage over other players by allowing them to spend more money than those who either cannot afford it or are not willing to spend their money. You can, for example, pay to get an item from a lootbox that speeds up the growth of your plants on your virtual farm, thus giving you an advantage over the other players. The meanings of gambling, time-saving, and fair-play are what is invoked when I, a gamer, see a lootbox. There is also the feeling of betrayal, that these lootboxes are taking something that could have been part of the game from the start and that was taken away but let us now focus more on the Civil Sphere.

This gambling and fair-play meaning in the lootbox motive are what divide game producers and gamers and what leads to what Alexan- der (2019) would call a beginning of societalization. In simple terms, this parallel of gambling to lootboxes triggered conflict and invited the Civil Sphere to go inside the Gaming Sphere to interpret the lootboxes for itself. I will now try to interpret the lootboxes from the perspective of the

87 APPENDIX C LOOTBOX GIF INTERPRETATION

Civil Sphere, thus, as if I was not a gamer. The lootbox is then just like a pack of Pokémon cards, you pay for it and hope to get something good without any guarantee. That was the first invoked meaning – the surprise box. Then there is the meaning of gambling that left the Gaming Sphere, and now you have to interpret it into everyday life. This poses one major problem – if lootboxes are gambling, how come that they are in videogames that are for kids? This infuses the lootbox with a strong meaning of a threat to the morals of Civil (Alexander 2006, 2019) society as gambling is not for kids. Lootbox then becomes a conflict of two meanings – the surprise box and the gambling box. These two meanings must battle it out for a new meaning of a lootbox that most of the society would ac- cept. I, as a gamer, am sticking to the gambling interpretation.

Literature used in the appendix C Alexander, J. C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press. Alexander, J. C. 2019. What Makes A Social Crisis?: The Societalization Of Social Problems. 1st ed. Medford, MA: Polity Press. Panofsky, E. 1955. Meaning In The Visual Arts: Papers In And On Art His- tory. New York: Doubleday & Company.

88 INDEX

Index

Geertz, 20, 34, 35, 71 Griffiths, 20, 21, 22, 70, 72 A Gros, 29, 30, 72 Alexander, 5, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, H 40, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 58, 59, 61, 64, 65, 67, 69, 81, 86, 87, 88 Hackenholt, 29, 30, 72 Arif, 50, 69 Hall, 20, 70 Armughanuddin, 60, 69 Hand, 18, 29 Hern, 47, 48, 72 Holy, 27 B Hood, 43, 72 Bell, 32, 66 Hopkins, 52, 53, 54, 57, 60, 65, 78, 79 Brestovansky, 59, 70 Brooks, 20, 70 I C Isaac, 25, 72 Cade, 18, 28, 70 J Cairns, 21, 77 Clark, 20, 70 Jakobsson, 18, 22, 28, 72 Coulson, 58, 61, 70 CrowdTangle, 32, 70 K D Karhulahti, 20, 21, 72 Kimppa, 20, 21, 72 Dini, 18 Kleinman, 47, 72 Douglas, 45, 52, 70 Knautz, 29, 30, 72 Drummond, 20, 70 Kristiansen, 20, 73 Durkheim, 20, 23, 36, 44, 49, 70 L E Li, 20, 73 Elmezeny, 19, 28, 29, 71 Entertainment Software Association, 18, 71 M Malim, 13, 73 F Mansfeld, 61, 74 Mills, 20, 73 Ferguson, 20, 70 Moon, 43, 44, 45, 46, 73 Frank, 38, 71 Moore, 18, 29 Frenkel, 25, 72 Friedman, 40, 44, 71 N G Naessens, 43, 44, 46 Neely, 21, 46, 73 Gach, 38, 71 Nower, 20, 73 Gartenberg, 60, 71 Gates, 18, 29, 70

89 INDEX

O Sztainert, 21, 37, 42, 76 O’Hara, 52, 57, 78, 79 Š OpenCritic, 41, 44, 73 Orland, 40, 73 Šisler, 19, 28, 75 Osborn, 35, 75 Šlerka, 19, 28, 75 Švelch, 19, 28, 75 P T Peters, 65, 74 Tassi, 37, 38, 39, 41, 51, 59, 60, 76 R Taylor, 18, 22, 28, 58, 76 Ransom-Wiley, 14, 74 W Ryle, 34, 74 Wanner, 29, 30, 72 S Weale, 62, 66, 76 Whalen, 18, 28, 76 Sauer, 20, 70 Williams, 14, 76 Seinen, 61, 74 Wimmer, 19, 28, 29, 71 Severin, 20, 73 Shaw, 19, 28, 29, 34, 67, 74 Y Scholing, 61 Schreier, 32, 37, 38, 39, 44, 50, 73, 74 Yin-Poole, 62, 66, 77 Schwiddessen, 61, 74 Young, 18, 62 Smith, 35, 63, 66, 67, 69, 75 Sobolev, 40, 75 Steinberg, 37, 75 Z Sterling, 32, 50, 51, 52, 58, 60, 63, 75 Zawadzki, 29, 30, 72 Strickland, 13, 75 Zendle, 21, 53, 77, 78 Sultan, 49, 59, 64, 75