The data comprises of in-depth interviews with two groups. The first is 20 parents and carers of children and young people who spend money in digital games and have purchased loot boxes (or similar). These interviews explored how parents view their child’s gaming and in-game purchases, how they understand paid reward systems in digital games, and what would help them navigate these systems with their children. The second group are 10 game designers who have experience of designing and developing digital games that contain paid reward systems. The focus here was to investigate how designers make decisions and how they understand the effects paid reward systems have on players. The aim of this data collection was to provide in- depth qualitative evidence of how children and young people engage with, understand, and experience paid reward systems in digital games (across console, mobile, and PC). Commonly called loot boxes, card packs, or spins, these digital items give randomised rewards of uncertain value in exchange for in-game currency purchased with real world money. Their success is largely predicated upon the use of techniques borrowed from regulated gambling to engage players and encourage repeated use of these mechanisms. The motivation for the study was therefore to collect data to investigate the link between paid reward systems in digital games and their relationship to techniques drawn from regulated gambling. These interviews were supplements to video ethnography with 42 families in the North East of England that were conducted in the family home to understand children and young people's practices and activities involving paid reward systems. These files are not uploaded to ReShare due to ethical considerations of recorded footage of children and young people in homes, as per our institutional ethical approval.Gambling style systems in digital games, such as loot boxes, cards, micro-transactions and forms of currency used to purchase game specific content have become widely adopted in a range of digital games. These models of revenue generation can take many forms, from free to play smart phone games that encourage the purchase of additional digital content, to full price videogame console releases that utilise chance based cards or 'loot' paid for with real currency. These systems are highly profitable, with publishers such as Activision earning over $4 billion from this aspect of their games in 2017 alone (Makuch 2018). But, their success is predicated upon the use of techniques and mechanics borrowed from machine gambling to encourage repeated use of these systems. While gambling is a highly regulated activity in the UK that is restricted to adults over the age of 18, many of these games are actively marketed and sold to children and young people under 18. This is problematic and the Gambling Commission (2017) has recently pointed out that 25,000 children between 11 and 16 are problem gamblers, 'with many introduced to betting via computer games and social media'. These systems thus raise important questions about their design and regulation, especially if they act as a gateway to other forms of gambling such as online casinos or fixed odds betting terminals. Despite the widespread nature of gambling style systems in digital games, no academic work has explicitly: 1. Investigated how children and young people use these systems in their everyday lives and whether they create any problems or issues for these groups. 2. Investigated how parents and guardians understand and regulate their children's use of these systems. To investigate these issues and fill this gap in knowledge the project researches three groups. 1. Digital reward system designers. Through interviews with 10 digital interface designers the project will identify the key mechanics and systems utilised in the games they have worked on and the aims of this design. 2. Children and young people who use gambling style systems in digital games. Through 100 hours of video ethnography across 40 families (equalling approximately 2.5 hours of footage per family), the project will investigate how children and young people use gambling style systems in digital games. In addition, 20 semi-structured interviews with children and young people will be conducted to understand how they use gambling style systems outside of the home, for example on mobile devices. 3. Parents of children and young people who use these systems. 20 interviews with parents will investigate how they understand these systems and whether they regulate their use of these systems and what form this regulation might take. Through research with these groups, the project develops a theoretical model of gambling style systems in digital games that investigates whether the success of their underlying mechanics is fundamentally linked to the space-times where they are used. It then examines how children and young people use these systems in practice and how they make sense of them. Utilising this body of evidence, the study will then offer recommendations as to whether these systems should be regulated and what form this regulation could take.

The data comprises of qualitative semi-structured interviews with two groups. The first is parents and guardians of children and young people in the North East of England who have used loot boxes and bought in-game content in digital games and apps. Discussions focus on how and when children and young people spend money, and how parents and guardians understand and manage spending. The second group is games designers who create loot boxes and in-game spending systems in a range of games and apps. Here, discussion focuses on the techniques of design in relation to encouraging children and young people to spend money and how effective these techniques are. Sampling procedures involved snowball sampling.