A recent study, carried out by two Norwegian researchers, Kamilla Knutsen Steinnes and Julia Reich, shows that the amount of money spent in free online games (Fortnite, for example) has become a social marker in its own right.
It's simple, if a young player starts a game with friends without having the latest brand new skin (paid alternative appearance) that has just been released, he or she is exposed to ridicule, or even exclusion or dismissal. harassment.
In their study, the two researchers notably mention online video games as a new social space in its own right.
“There is no clear distinction between their real life and their online life,” explains Kamilla Knutsen Steinnes.
They're just different parts of a social world that they navigate, and where appearances, skins, are important markers of identity.”
To draw a parallel, it's not like the cases of children taunted at school because of the range of their school supplies, the state of their clothes.
Or a young person registered in a sports club and who would have inherited old, damaged and cheap things, or a counterfeit jersey of their favorite team.
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There are two problems.
The first is that a “child who pays” is rather a parent who pays.
And not all parents have the same means or the same involvement in their child's relationship with video games.
This creates enormous differences, from one child to another.
The other concern is that a child, especially on game services full of shops and payments, is constantly bombarded with advertisements, pop-ups and techniques to encourage people to buy, buy, buy.
And it's hard to resist.
The two Norwegian researchers identified 13 different forms of manipulation in these games, what we call “dark patterns”.
For example, for a whole period, in Fortnite, the button to try on an outfit in your collection was the same as to buy one, once in the store.
With muscle memory, it was very common to buy, without doing it on purpose.
From now on, the store is supposed to be less attractive.
In September 2023, the American government asked Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite, to reimburse its players to the tune of $245 million, pointing out the manipulative design of its store.