Chew, Peter K.H. (2025) Reply to “Fundamental flaws in the design and reporting of Chew and Neo (2024)”. Trends in Psychology. (In Press)

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Abstract

Although loot boxes are structurally and psychologically similar to gambling, they are available to minors and relatively free from government regulations. The extant research has generally found weak positive relationships between the purchase of loot boxes, and internet gaming disorder and problem gambling severity. However, most of the research do not include a comparison group to quantify the unique harm of loot boxes. Indeed, our study found that internet gaming disorder and problem gambling severity were not significant predictors of resources (i.e., money and time) spent on games with loot boxes after controlling for resources spent on games without loot boxes (Chew & Neo, 2024). In response, an authors’ commentary provided feedback on the following issues: (a) fundamental error in the survey materials, (b) unclear and unjustified inclusion and exclusion criteria, (c) misinterpreting null results as evidence of absence, (d) statistical approach and overcontrolling, (e) lack of engagement with open science. In this paper, I elaborated on some of the decisions made in our study and strengthened the conclusions via Bayesian statistics. Overall, the authors’ concerns are unwarranted and I reiterate our conclusion that (a) there is a lack of evidence for the unique harm of loot boxes and (b) it might be worth examining the effects of microtransactions in general (Chew & Neo, 2024).

Item ID:	86434
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2358-1883
Keywords:	Internet addiction disorder, Pathological gambling, Loot boxes
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Date Deposited:	15 Aug 2025 06:32
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