Counterplay: Circumventing the Belgian Ban on Loot Boxes by Adolescents

Abstract

In 2018, Belgium made the world news for being the first country to ban loot boxes in games for all its inhabitants. As players’ freedom to purchase loot boxes was restricted, however, methods of circumventing the ban came into practice. Departing from counterplay theory, we drew from an online survey among Belgian adolescents aged 11 18 with two questions in mind: what counterplay practices are used to circumvent the Belgian ban on loot boxes, and how do counterplayers (N = 124) compare to non counterplayers (N = 329) in terms of their engagement with loot boxes and games more broadly? Our findings suggest that counterplayers resist current regulatory arrangements in a myriad of ways, delineating the boundaries of a national ban in a global game ecology. Counterplayers appeared to differentiate themselves from non counterplayers both in terms of depth characteristics (sense of belonging to an online community, perceived gaming ability, gaming disorder, and risky loot box use) and breadth characteristics (frequency of skin betting, selling loot box rewards, and (re)watching loot box opening livestreams). Ultimately, our study may tease out debate on how to regulate games successfully in the face of players’ technical abilities and motivation to gain access.