Rare Loot Box Rewards Trigger Larger Arousal and Reward Responses, and Greater Urge to Open More Loot Boxes.

ABSTRACT: Loot boxes are a purchasable video-game feature consisting of randomly determined, in-game virtual items. Due to their chance-based nature, there is much debate as to whether they constitute a form of gambling. We sought to address this issue by examining whether players treat virtual loot box rewards in a way that parallels established reward reactivity for monetary rewards in slots play. Across two sets of experiments, we show that loot boxes containing rarer items are more valuable, arousing, rewarding and urge-inducing to players, similar to the way slots gamblers treat rare large wins in slots play. Importantly, we show in Experiment 2 that the duration of Post Reinforcement Pauses, an index of reward reactivity, are longer for boxes with rarer items. Boxes containing rarer rewards al

SUBMITTER: Larche CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7882574 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature