Why is opening a loot box so hard to stop?

A loot box is a virtual container that holds a random prize, usually bought with real money or earned in play. What you get is decided by chance, and the rarest items come with the lowest odds. Some opening interfaces look like slot machines or roulette wheels, and are designed to create a psychological response that raises excitement.

Why does that grip people? Psychologists studying learning found that the reward schedule matters. When a reward comes after an unpredictable number of tries, behaviour is the most vigorous and the hardest to extinguish. It is called a variable ratio schedule, and gamblers at slot machines are the classic example. Loot boxes are often compared to it, and the comparison is one reason they are described as part of a compulsion loop. Some boxes even add a pity timer, which raises your chance of a rarer item after several disappointments. That can feed into the gambler's fallacy, the false feeling that a win is due.

Is it gambling? Researchers in Nature Human Behaviour concluded in 2018 that loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling. A meta-analysis of 15 studies found that spending on loot boxes and problem gambling symptoms were moderately positively correlated. Yet other researchers warn that correlation is not causation: people already prone to gambling may simply be more drawn to loot boxes.

Defenders compare them to collectible toys or booster packs of trading cards. In law, a common dividing line is whether the prizes can be turned back into real money inside the game. China took another route and required publishers to disclose the draw probability of items.