You come upon a fork in the path: junk mail edition 1. Get paid to publish a gambling affiliate link on your website (Did they even read what else is on that website? Almost tempted to say yes to study their procedure) 2. Claim an AI chatbot pretending to be me answering questions from parents?!

Big oof. OSF is removing file/data sharing capabilities: www.cos.io/osf-changes. I understand this is due to funding challenges. Need to find another repository. Bad news for #OpenScience.

My team actually cracked open and documented the disclosure features of those blind boxes and card packs that you see on display before me in the photo in the article.

The South China Morning Post SCMP raises awareness of concerns around #LootBoxes and other gambling-like products and calls for further research: www.scmp.com/news/hong-ko....

1️⃣: As a matter of principle, traditional DLCs bought through third-party platform stores are “in-game purchases” within the meaning of advertising regulations, because consumers would consider them as additional purchases they might make after purchasing the game itself.

An ad for Borderlands 4 on a bus was NOT required to disclose the presence of in-game purchases, due to specific circumstances, per the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA): www.asa.org.uk/rulings/take....

Delighted to share the visuals and mascot, a cute little mimic monster we've named Looty, for the upcoming Gam(bl)ing Conference (28–29 September 2026) in Hong Kong focusing on the convergence between video games and gambling.

Notably, we also identified gambling ads with novel GRWM (Get Ready With Me) aesthetics that specifically targeted young women, suggesting gambling operators are attempting to reach new audiences.

Gambling ads reached 2.3 times more men than women in Ireland, even though most ads were not set to target men specifically. 🎰🇮🇪 doi.org/10.1556/2006...

I note also that the non-loot box-related new rules are particularly interesting: many different things will attract a variety of age ratings.

We’re recruiting a postdoc and up to 3 research assistants at the Creative Media Policy Observatory (www.cmpo.net), City University of Hong Kong. Apply for the RA position: www.cityu.edu.hk/hro/en/job/c... Apply for the postdoc position: www.cityu.edu.hk/hro/en/job/c...

69 submissions; 42% acceptance rate 60+ authors whose extended abstracts (see: www.cmpo.net/gachacon) we aim to archive in the DiGRA Digital Library ONE gacha machine Many probability disclosures of varying quality were hidden around the venue.

Some hard stats! 277 total registrations; 125 physical badges collected Averaged 70 offline and 30 online attendees throughout 102 in the Discord channel and 91 in the WeChat group Attendees came from 🇨🇳(🇭🇰)🇯🇵🇰🇷🇸🇬🇮🇳🇬🇧🇩🇪🇫🇷🇪🇸🇳🇱🇩🇰🇫🇮🇲🇹🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺🇧🇷

Held our first conference! #GachaCon2026 focused on Genshin Impact, spanning #GameStudies research on storytelling, world building, player communities, gender, the Chinese industry, game design, psychology, monetisation, regulation, and beyond.

R v Lakeman [2026] EWCA Crim 4 (www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWC...) just decided that "Gold Pieces," a premium virtual currency in Old School Runescape by Jagex, are "property" that can be stolen under UK criminal law.

Shortly after the UK @houseoflords.parliament.uk debate on #LootBoxes (see: lnkd.in/gTMy7qH3), the @houseofcommons.parliament.uk also debated gambling harms in relation to children and young people in Westminster Hall.

GachaCon 2026 is just one month away (12–13 February)! Preliminary programme: docs.google.com/spreadsheets.... Want to bag some GachaCon merch? Register for attendance: forms.gle/Mjk9tRo9TTSW....

A tale of two online posts about our impact on UK game advertising: www.asa.org.uk/rulings/hutc.... My LinkedIn post: 1k+ impressions (not bad!) YouTube Shorts by @baitybait.bsky.social with 717k subs: 163k views & 9.5k likes! Academia does need to think about other channels to reach the public!

Another video game tries to illegally “BREAK FREE” from advertising regulation. But we will hold them to account! 🚨⛓️ Borderlands 4, published by 2K, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, contains in-game purchases, but its advertising failed to disclose this material information to consumers.

Got a chance to try out Riftbound, the League of Legends trading card game in Simplified Chinese. Gameplay is basically Magic: The Gathering, but mulligan/the mana system is Hearthstone: send back and redraw + you get two "lands" at the start of each turn. Combat felt a bit like Marvel Snap…?

Meta 🏗️🔮

Perplexing survey design choice to not explicitly ask about #LootBoxes and #SkinGambling anymore when the definition for “gambling” used in the overall survey did include them (“any activity which involves risking money (or something of value) in the hope of winning money or a prize”)… 🤨

Photo credit: Dr James Morris @jamesmorris24.bsky.social. (If you're wondering, UK video game ad non-compliance with the requirement to disclose the presence of loot boxes on social media is likely “down” to ~87.5%. 🤦 A LONG way more to go.)

Importantly, I also showed how this research method could be more widely used for substance-based addiction, beyond behavioural addiction: for example, for studying the advertising of alcohol and nicotine pouches.

Grateful to the Society for the Study of Addiction (@addiction-ssa.org) for awarding me the Fred Yates Prize for Early Career Researchers 2025 in recognition of my “significant impact on the regulation of addictive elements in video games.”

We do not yet have PEGI’s age rating for this game, but doubtless that will also soon state that the game will contain in-game purchases. However, see the ESRB and USK age ratings. Ironic that I often spot illegal video game ads in the evening right after giving a talk on the issue at a conference.

New Call of Duty ad breaches its duty to consumers. 🪖🚫🙅🏻‍♀️ As soon as you walk out of Newcastle train station (26,000 daily visitors): a clear breach of UK @adstandards.bsky.social Advertising Standards Authority rule that advertising for video games must disclose the presence of any in-game purchases.

Glad you pointed this out. Below is a real reaction message I sent whilst listening. There was also a “studies have shown porn has the same effect on the brain as hard drugs.” (Slight but not really paraphrase) How could we push back? 😩

That is obviously not good enough. (We have a precedent on a loot box presence disclosure that is not sufficiently visually prominent: www.asa.org.uk/rulings/elec...) Each of those four points can, and ought to, be improved upon. Check the full ad yourself: www.facebook.com/ads/library/....

See below for an example from a currently active UK ad. Notice the (i) extremely tiny and blurry loot box presence disclosure text (ii) hidden in the middle of a message after the copyright notice that is (iii) flashed for only a few seconds (iv) at the end of a one-and-a-half-minute video?