European Parliament to Investigate Lootboxes, Gold Farming, and More, With Potential Regulation To C

Kyleran

Vrika said:

Kyleran said:

To cover children raised by the other 45% of irresponsible parents perhaps ...but I'd prefer to "encourage" and educate  parents to step up and do the job they signed up for rather than forcing the gaming industry to put in onerous controls on the other side which can be used against both adult and parents alike.

Actually, parents have been making their children in a society where by law no-one is allowed to sell stuff inappropriate to children without checking that the buyer is at least 18. The ID check is for alcohol, tobacco, guns and gambling. I'm not sure if car sellers and sex workers have such a law, but regardless they'd face severe penalties if they gave what they're selling to a child.

As tech advances extending the responsibility to check that the buyer is of age to online purchases is in line with how society's been sharing that responsibility.

From my point of view you're just shirking your responsibility when you're trying to claim right to buy 18+ stuff online without verification that you're of age. That verification was always your responsibility as an adult, and switching your 18+ purchases from old tech to new tech does not release you from your responsibilities.


This doesn't mean parents wouldn't have any responsibility. But the responsibility of 18+ stuff has always been shared by parents who need to watch after their children, and businesses who need to check that they aren't selling to a child.

But the question is, are loot boxes on par with casino gambling or Pokemon / Baseball trading cards?

In my mind it's the latter. I also believe it's person's of legal age who are the largest partakers of loot boxes, but lawmakers are using the children as a means to regulate adult behavior as well.

Happy if you can point me to any real evidence that children are being harmed by loot boxes, certainly not in any significant numbers.

Slapshot1188

Kyleran said:

Happy if you can point me to any real evidence that children are being harmed by loot boxes, certainly not in any significant numbers.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263177
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220111
https://intenta.digital/game-design/psychology-of-loot-boxes/
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56614281
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0360-1
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213194



 "Although the gaming industry claims that loot boxes are unproblematic, non-gambling activities, this claim is refuted by the evidence. Recent research by the GambleAware charity found “there is robust evidence that loot boxes are structurally and psychologically akin to gambling, with associations strongest amongst younger players.” (Close & Lloyd, 2021).

The research, carried out by the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Plymouth in the UK, found that:

93% of children regularly play games and 25-40% of them have made a loot box purchase

Around 5% of loot box purchasers spend more than around $100 per month (or the local equivalent)

Almost one third of these top 5% of spenders fall into the “problem gambler” category

12 out of 13 studies on the topic have established “unambiguous” connections to problem gambling behaviour

The higher the level of involvement in loot boxes, the higher the score on a measure of problem gambling symptomatology"

Enough evidence?