Loot boxes have all the markings of a moral panic. Dr.McCaffrey reviewed the emerging literature, and like the research on video game violence, it's destined for methodological malfunction.
We discuss why everything isn't a loot box, the apathetic interest of economists in games, what George R.R. Martin's economic equilibrium teaches us, and how to get more people interested in economics.
Follow Dr.McCaffrey on Twitter [1], see him on video games [2], and read his loot box and A Song of Fire and Ice papers here [3].