+1000XP GAME LECTURES: Rune Kristian Lundedal Nielsen – Disentangling the mess

It is notoriously difficult to define what video games are even as they have grown to become a dominant force in cultures around the world. Likewise, lawmakers and health experts struggle to figure out how to react, advise and legislate when it comes to digital games. Thus, so-called loot boxes are deemed to be gambling in some countries, but not others. The World Health Organization believes that video games along with gambling games are the only behaviors (that don’t involve substances) in the world that can cause addiction. In the US, the Worldwide Psychiatric Association disagrees and has (so far) asserted that we do not have enough evidence to claim that it is possible to become addicted to video games. At the same time video games are the only addictive behavior that the World Health Organi- zation has urged people to engage with during the pandemic as a great way to be together apart.
Confused yet? In this lecture we testament consider whether or not “loot boxes” are gambling and take a deep dive into the literature on video game addiction that one researcher has called “an epistemic dumpster fire.”

Speaker / Redner:

Rune Kristian Lundedal Nielsen, IT-Univerity of Copenhagen
Tweets by RuneKristian

Event host / Veranstalter:

Macromedia University, Campus Leipzig: https://www.macromedia.de/standorte/leipzig.html

Supporter / Unterstützer:

Games & XR Mitteldeutschland: https://www.games-und-xr.de/
Amt für Wirtschaftsförderung Stadt Leipzig: https://twitter.com/wifoeleipzig

Editing:
Media Seasons: https://mediaseasons.com/

Background animation by: AA VFX, Amitai Angor, https://www.youtube.com/dvdangor2011