“Don't Gamble With Children's Rights”—How Behavioral Design Impacts the Right of Children to a Playful and Healthy Game Environment

Abstract

Gaming is an important pastime for young people to relax, socialize and have fun, but also to be challenged, show creativity and work together to achieve goals. The design of games can have an impact on their behavior. With the changing revenue models of games, we see that game design is increasingly taking forms that do not always have a positive impact on children and may interfere with, or even violate, children's rights. This article examines how evolving revenue models of games impact user's behavior via game design. Behavioral design in games thus raises questions about children's rights to play and recreation, to health, to protection from economic exploitation and to data protection.

Gaming and luxury brands: love and hate

“…It is widely acknowledged that there is potential for games to be misused or even exploited by businesses, given the increasing exposure to in-game payment. Gamers tend to spend virtual money more easily, as the association with real money disappears, and players become unaware of the true cost of certain in-game items (Van der Hof et al , 2022). Player comments accused game developers of promotional tactics and encouraging children to gamble with expensive limited items.…”

Children’s Privacy and Video Games: Comments on Commercial Surveillance ANPR, R111004

“…31 This commercialization of play can have negative e ects on children's self-image and how they understand the world around them. 32 Manipulative design and the undermining of self-directed play A combination of manipulative game design and targeted, behavioral advertising undermines free or self-directed play. For children, free play is essential to their development of social skills and burgeoning autonomy.…”

“…There is also a growing literature on the commercial exploitation of children in the digital environment, of which surveillance and prolonging online activity is a part. 82 Games make liberal use of user-retention strategies that are common to many online services to usefully allocate resources, manage player numbers, pace the development and release of content. Player data is a necessary component of these systems, and they are designed to prolong engagement.…”