Video Games and Online Casinos, How Similar are They?

The characteristics of some video games have many similarities with online casinos and at the same time some gambling games are emulating the graphics and conteporary videogames like 888 slot games for example which integrate the look and feel of a videogame on the classic gambling structure of a slot machine.

Aside of the graphics one of the similar priciple, perhaps the most obvious, is the loot box mechanism. If you have never heard of it, and I doubt this, loot boxes are indeed boxes, often chests (depending on the title you are playing), which contain equipment, objects, bonuses that allow you to make the game character more strong or to make it level faster. They can be purchased with real money, and already here we begin to see the similarity with online gambling, but now comes the beauty: you do not know what they contain.

Opening a loot box is like pulling the lever of the slot machine, you can hit jackpots and find rare items that will allow you to be superior to other players or the payout can be modest and only allow you some small advantage. Of course, you will hardly find anything, because you paid, but the mechanism is that: bet, pull the lever, hope to win. Add to this the fact that there is no age limit, there is no control within the games that blocks this type of action to minors.

Loot boxes

What makes this mechanism not (yet) classified as gambling is the fact that there is no cashback, that is, you cannot earn real money. In exchange for money you get items: virtual, random, but always items.

Regarding this situation, an Australian university examined the gambling behaviors of 1,954 people between the ages of 12 and 24 living in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state by population density, highlighting how spending monthly average is $ 32 for minors and $ 51 for adults. Not quite that cheap.

The history of video games

And to think that the age-old diatribe about the benefits or alleged harm that electronic games bring has existed practically since the birth of video games themselves, which even took place at the end of the 1940s.

The origins of video games go back a long way and from environments actually distant from the entertainment industry, and the first experiments were just simple vector pulses on the screen, experimented in research laboratories.

To have the first interactive video game, you will have to wait until 1961, with the appearance of Spacewar!made by MIT in Boston, which began to entertain millions of children. But the real revolution came in 1971, when the future founders of Atari coined the title “Computer Space”, the first coin-operated video game ever.

The high and hardly sustainable cost in mass distribution led to numerous changes, both hardware and software, and in the following years the iconic Pong game appeared.

It was the prelude to the arrival of home game systems, which Atari itself began to distribute around the world starting in 1977, the release period of titles such as Pac-Man or Space Invaders.

By now the rise became unstoppable, with the legendary Commodore 64 every Italian kid could play his favorite video games at low cost even from home.

In the mid-1980s, then, the history of video games was marked by the clash of two Japanese giants: on the one hand Nintendo, producer of the “Nes” console and of the characters Super Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong (and more recently of the famous Pokemon ); on the other hand, Sega, parent of the “Sega Master System” and Sonic, Alex Kidd and Golden Ax.

The extraordinary battle on the market between the two manufacturers continued for years and years, producing more and more modern and powerful consoles, as well as extremely entertaining and advanced video games. On the one hand we went from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation, on the other from the Sega Mega Drive to the Dreamcast.

Moving closer to the present day, it was Microsoft that further disrupted an extraordinarily thriving market with the introduction of XBOX and online gaming. Titles like Sims or Halo are still among the most popular among players of all ages.

The history of video games is in continuous and rapid evolution and today it seems it is not necessary to have a console to play: many times a tablet or smartphone is enough to connect and challenge the whole world. Fortnite is just the progenitor of a saga that, we are sure, is destined to last a long time.

The online frontier has profoundly changed the way people enjoy gambling, investing not only video games but all entertainment in general, as demonstrated by the birth of online casinos.

Furthermore, video games themselves have been a source of inspiration in the world of gambling, as evidenced by some hugely successful slot machines such as “Lara Croft Temples and Tombs”.

In short, video games have evolved over the yeasr, starting from their graphic up to the use of IA, this ivolvment also contributed to the evolution of entertainment in general.