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.

With the rise of free-to-play (F2P) games, the profitability of video-gaming apps critically depends on the ability of developers to acquire, retain, and monetize large numbers of players. In this context, most game designers have no viable alternative than massively collecting players' personal data and monitoring their behavior to target them with personalized advertising and in-game purchases. Given the risks associated with such data practices, players, in particular children, need to be aware that a video game might compromise their privacy. Game designers should therefore ensure that players receive appropriate information about the data practices associated with their games. This might, however, be challenging, especially when the game is directed at children, given the complexity of privacy information and the limited literacy capacities of children and their parents. To answer game designers' need for comprehensive guidance regarding the communication of privacy information to children, we provide a survey of the age-appropriate information design strategies which been recommended by data protection authorities, children protection organizations and the relevant scientific literature. On this occasion, we also refer to illustrative examples of designs which can be considered good practices. Finally, by using an "evaluation matrix", we reviewed and assessed the implementation of those design strategies in nine F2P mobile games committed to following Google Play's Families Policies. Our findings show that, despite being child-oriented, the reviewed games largely fail at communicating privacy information in an age-appropriate way.

Whereas past CHI-related work has paid attention to various elements of the esports industry, there exists a scarcity of such research on the increasing convergence between esports and gambling. This study, therefore, aimed to shed light on the emerging phenomenon of esports betting in two ways. First, we theorized about its characteristics according to the 5W1H framework. Second, using semi-structured laddering interviews and Means-End Chain Theory, we assessed the esports betting motivations of young, male and recreational gamblers who interact with monetary and skin betting websites. Our results show that gamblers follow various motivational pathways when using an esports betting platform and construct their motives in relation to platform-specific properties and personal values. As such, we demonstrate that a holistic understanding of esports betting is of utmost importance if we want to explain and investigate its appeal to a worldwide audience.