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The UK Could Class Loot Boxes Under the Same Category as Gambling to Protect Children.
By Jeff Osienya Jun 10, 2020 IndustryGrowing concerns for the gambling-like mechanics used in loot boxes have pushed the DCMS in the UK to dig deeper into the matter. The findings could potentially lead to the reclassification of loot boxes as gambling.United Kingdom’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) is planning to conduct research that targets video game loot boxes. For over two years now, there has been a swelling concern about these in-game loot boxes and how they could inadvertently be teaching younger children to start fancying gambling at an early age. Therefore, based on what the results from this research will present, the United Kingdom government could end up reclassifying these loot boxes as a form of gambling product.
This Isn’t the First Time Loot Boxes Have Come Under Fire
The biggest issue associated with these loot boxes is that they use a mechanic that ends up exposing underage participants to an entertainment stimulus that’s similar to that of gambling. These assertions come from a November 2019 study that was conducted by the University of York, led by David Zendle a Video Game Effects expert who also lectures at the institution.
A month after Zendle’s study, UK’s Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) also came out to call for tightened regulations for these loot boxes. The RSPH further appealed to developers of video games, asking them to monitor the sales figures of the loot boxes the same way casinos and sportsbooks monitor player behavior in a bid to identify patterns of reckless gaming and overspending. According to the RSPH, in as much as the children who play the video games in question don’t consider the loot boxes as a gambling activity, partaking in this form of entertainment increases the chances of gambling-related problems when the kids in question grow older.
MP Carolyn Harris, who doubles up as the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Related Harm (APPG) recently voiced her concern about these loot boxes. She called them” a virtually speculative commodity” which ends up pushing the youth to develop gambling addiction by “normalizing and encouraging” them to take a chance.
Should the UK regulators decide to reclassify these items as gambling, a lot of video game companies will be affected. On one hand, some games could end up being withdrawn out of the UK market entirely while on the other hand, some video game creators may instead move to rework their games to be appropriate for players below 18 years, UK’s legal gambling age.
How Exactly Do Loot Boxes Compare to Traditional Gambling?
Well, even though the loot boxes are often a small part of video games, they come with an element of chance that’s pretty similar to RNGs (Random Number Generations) used for casino games. But then, given that the items that are won in these loot boxes don’t hold any actual monetary value according to video game developing companies, the loot boxes aren’t regulated by UK’s Gambling Commission.
That being said, last year, a DCMS inquiry committee found evidence that the items won in the loot boxes could be put up for sale in exchange for real money through third-party websites. And yet again, the question of whether video Game developers are profiting from guised ‘underage gambling’ comes up.
While asserting that video game developers are cashing in on a form of underage gambling seems a bit too harsh, it all falls into perspective if you consider a 2018 research carried out by the University of York. According to the findings, today, 71% of the most popular video games published on Steam contain loot boxes, compared to a mere 4% adoption a decade ago. This astounding increase could fairly raise the eyebrows of industry watchdogs.
Is the House Always Winning in Loot Boxes?
To justify whether or not the loot box alarm is warranted, let us take a closer look at how these items are awarded in the first place. Depending on the game, you are either supposed to make a direct in-app real money purchase or purchase a key to unlock your bounty. Sometimes, players also exchange these keys for items that have equal or higher value.
However, players who buy these loot boxes end up getting raw deals. For instance, you could purchase or exchange a key for $5.00 but the gift you end up getting after unlocking the loot boxes may have a value of a couple of cents only. That is exactly what fuels the controversy of the loot boxes; players mostly end up getting less than what they paid for. What makes this even more worrying is that youngsters can easily reload their accounts using gift cards sold in the game, making it a sort of vicious cycle.
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