The hot button topic in the world of video games research this year has been the debate around addiction.

Earlier in the summer, the World Health Organisation released the latest version of the International Classification of Diseases, or ICD-11, a diagnostic manual that clinicians use to classify and support the diagnosis of a wide range of diseases, including mental health disorders. It included, for the first time, and to much controversy, gaming disorder. While the move was lauded by some academics, others (myself included) cautioned that its inclusion was too premature and potentially risks over-diagnosis, pathologising a hobby that for the vast majority of gamers isn’t harmful.

Part of the problem with trying to develop a set of diagnostic criteria for something like gaming disorder (or to put it another way, video game addiction) is that academics generally aren’t very consistent with the way that they classify video games themselves. For example, when we talk about gaming disorder, are we talking about the risk of video games generally being addictive, as in every single type of game that exists? Or do we only really mean specific sub-genres? Or is it even the case that we don’t really mean ‘video games’ at all – rather, it is some of the mechanics of video gameplay that can lend themselves to becoming addictive?

It’s that last question in particular that I’ve been thinking about a lot since the summer. Over the past few years, there has been a clear shift in the way that video games have been marketed and monetised. As games have shifted away from subscription-based models of earning cash, in-game microtransactions, typically in the form of loot boxes, have become more prominent. And there’s a growing concern among academics and gambling legislators that this is not a good thing.

Loot boxes, if you haven’t come across them before, can take many forms, but the general idea is this. Every so often, say after gaining an experience level on your character, you receive a free in-game goodie bag, which can contain valuable items such as cosmetic decorations or clothing, new weapons, various forms of in-game currency, or even new character avatars. You typically earn free boxes at a slow rate though, so you can speed the process up by spending real cash to obtain more of them. The types of items that you can get from the boxes vary in terms of rarity, which naturally leads to the harder-to-win items becoming more desirable. You can see, therefore, where the worry lies – players are encouraged to spend their money to have a random chance of winning something desirable. It sounds a lot like more traditional forms of gambling.

For the past couple of years, video games researchers have been trying to figure out how much of a problem loot boxes are in this regard. But one thing that really confuses matters is that there are so many different types of the damn things. Some are free, some you have to pay for. Some only give you cosmetic items and have nothing to do with actually playing the game itself, whereas others can give you upgrades to help you win. Some are bought directly with real money, others are bought with in-game virtual currencies. Some provide you with items that have no value beyond the game itself, whereas other can be bought and sold for real cash on online marketplaces. Disentangling the effects of all of these factors is no easy task.