Bright whirring colours. Sleek animation. Upbeat music to get your heart thumping. The chance of winning at random. A ka-ching noise when you get lucky.

Loot boxes are containers in video games with randomised virtual items to win. In games like Overwatch, they can look like this.

You might win, you might lose, it’s random.

The thing is, to use a loot box you have to pay. Sometimes with credits you’ve earned in the game, and sometimes with your own hard-earned money.

Have loot boxes or in-game purchases affected you? Have you had issues with the amount of time or money you spend on video games? We want to hear your story. Email Hack@abc.net.au

Reckon the concept of loot boxes look and feel like gambling? Except that loot boxes are unregulated, and have appeared in games like Star Wars Battlefront II, marketed to both adults and minors?

According to the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR), it’s complicated. Here’s what they said on the issue in a statement to Hack today.

"The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) is aware of the issue of "loot boxes". This is a complex issue and the VCGLR is committed to working with other agencies and jurisdictions to address the risks involved.

"The VCGLR has not made a determination that "loot boxes" are an unauthorised form of gambling under Victorian legislation."

This all comes after a relatively rare moment of unity among gamers worldwide, a groundswell of interest in banning loot boxes in jurisdictions around the world, and the most downvoted Reddit comment in history.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Why everyone’s talking about loot boxes

Star Wars Battlefront II was released earlier this month. A highly-anticipated video game that’s part of the world’s biggest and most beloved franchise. It’s a big deal.

But it didn’t take long for customers playing a pre-release version of the game to get pissed off. To unlock certain characters in the game, like Darth Vader for example, users had to collect tens of thousands of credits, which could take days of solid gameplay.

You can’t buy credits; you have to earn them in the game. But one way of advancing faster in the game is by winning items through loot boxes. To use a loot box, you had to buy "crystals" with real money.

A user on Reddit called it out, saying “the age of microtransactions has gone WAY too far.”

EA, the maker of the game, responded.

"The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes," they said.

That response soon became the most downvoted comment in Reddit history.

EA then responded by removing in-game purchasing of crystals, and apologised for not “getting this right”. But they added that "the ability to purchase crystals will become available at a later date."

Skip Twitter Tweet FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. Today, we turned off in-game purchases for #StarWarsBattlefrontII. The game is built on your input, and it will continue to evolve and grow. Read the full update: https://t.co/asGASaYXVp pic.twitter.com/vQSOmsWRgk — EAStarWars (@EAStarWars) November 17, 2017

The controversy has certainly brought the issue of in-game purchases to the fore, Dr Daniel King from the University of Adelaide told Hack, with jurisdictions around the world arguing that loot boxes constitute gambling.

"In the last week, the Belgian gambling commission has now pushed for the EU to recognise these gaming products as gambling,” Dr King says.

"There’s a Hawaiian senator pushing for changes to these products.

"There now seems to be a groundswell around these sorts of products being classified as gambling."

Dr King says he’s surprised at how strongly the gaming community has reacted to the issue.

"Typically in the past, the gaming community haven’t gotten behind research on the link between aggression and violent games; they’re often cynical about research about addiction. But it’s interesting to see that it’s almost unanimous in its voice around these microtransactions and loot boxes.

People are just saying, ‘Eradicate them, I want them gone’."

Is it gambling?

The Hawaiian Senator calling for loot boxes to be banned, Chris Lee, has called Star Wars Battlefront II a "Star Wars-themed online casino, designed to lure kids into spending money".

EA disputes this. In a statement they said, "Creating a fair and fun game experience is of critical importance to EA. The [loot box] mechanics of Star Wars Battlefront II are not gambling. A player’s ability to succeed in the game is not dependent on purchasing crates."

Dr Daniel King says classifying loot boxes and "microtransactions" in video games as gambling is complicated.

"The word gambling is a constraining word. We might need some other term that recognises an activity that looks and feels and has all the same mechanics of gambling, but doesn’t have the same financial return.

I think game developers are certainly learning from poker machines. But at the same time, I think games are much more sophisticated than poker machines.

"They have access to a lot more information about the player, they’ve got access to who the player is, their social interactions, their data and habits. Poker machines don’t learn from what the player is doing, gaming does."

Could loot boxes be ‘gateway gambling’?

The link between a casual gamer spending money on things like loot boxes, and then becoming a problem gambler is unclear, Dr King says.

"In terms of studies that have specifically looked at the link between spending transactions and harm, there’s really not a lot out there. People overspending on virtual currencies is quite different to problem gambling.

"The evidence is preliminary at this stage, it’s just so new."

The target age group for games like Star Wars Battlefront II could be a concern, Dr King says.

"Between the ages of 12 - 25, it’s a very vulnerable time for the development of addictions. So if people also have a set of vulnerabilities, they’re more prone to developing addictions at that particular point in their life."