
Ban kids from loot box gambling in games - MarcScott
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49661870
======
ian0
Myself and my son play Apex legends. Its an online multiplayer game thats
free, but you can optionally pay to unlock cosmetic items like character
outfits (skins) etc.

He came into some cash recently courtesy of the tooth fairy and asked if we
could buy a skin for his favorite character. I said ok. However after id
purchased some in game coins we realised that we couldn't actually buy the
skin he wanted, instead we had to buy 10 boxes with random contents that could
potentially contain a skin similar to the one he wanted.

Watching his excitement opening up the boxes and his eventual disappointment
at not receiving the one he wanted - plus subsequent enthusiasm to buy more
coins courtesy of some lesser items granted, I realised Id made a horrible
mistake. Id basically introduced a virtual pub gambling machine to a young
kid. This sort of stuff is horrible.

~~~
scandinavegan
No, you did good! He needs to learn how to handle this and you're right there
guiding him.

I have the same situation with my six-year old son and Rocket League loot
boxes. He wants to spend all his limited money on them, I think he's wasting
it, especially since I see the disappointment when he doesn't get the things
he want, but that's a learning experience. It's worse when he once in a while
gets a cool skin, because in his eyes it makes it all worth it.

I see the money I give him as teaching opportunities. Kids will get in touch
with these mechanics as they grow up, and now you have the chance to talk to
him about it. Discuss it over and over, it's not a one-time thing, and you've
made no permanent damage. Let him know you think it's not worth it, but I
wouldn't put a permanent ban on it, as it may make it even more appealing. If
he wants other (real-life) stuff later, remind him that he already spent his
money on loot boxes and I think they will lose their appeal a bit.

~~~
gambiting
I mean when I was a kid you'd get this sticker album for your favourite
thing(be it football players, star wars, whatever) and I'd always beg mum to
get me yet another sticker pack so I could complete my collection. There were
always stickers that I really really wanted and yeah, the disappointment of
going through a few packs and not getting what you wanted was very real.

I think ultimately, this is the same thing - just digitized. I don't really
have an opinion whether that's good or bad, just that it's clearly aimed at
kids to buy this stuff, just like the stickers were.

~~~
esotericn
I don't really think "just digitized" captures the problem with these boxes.

Imagine a fairly boring interface that has Pokemon cards or football stickers
in. Like your hands holding them and trading them and sticking them on things.

Now contrast that to the loot box stuff that has exciting music, flashing
lights, A-B tested into oblivion, the money comes from some ethereal 'account'
rather than involving an actual exchange, etc.

I think the analogy is more with the flashing exciting slot machines at the
pub (which seem to have evolved a ton since I were a small as well...)

~~~
weaksauce
Maybe just a little bit of a way to remove the dopamine high, or make it
slightly worse, would be to have the kid physically hand you the money before
they open the case so they feel the pain of spending the cash.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Which surely only works for older kids who've had the experience of earning
money with hard graft.

~~~
jaclaz
Well, you can do it the good ol' way with ceramic piggy banks that do not open
but need to be crashed with a hammer.

Anecdata, I had one in the shape of a dinosaur, must have ben 5 or 6 and I
still remember (some 50 years later) the day I decided that I _needed_ a new
toy the doubts about actually breaking it (with the assistance of my dad) and
perfectly remmber the dinosaur, whilst I cannot remember at all which toy I
was willing to get, probably a toy gun, but I am not sure.

------
demonbae
Years ago, when I was about 12 years old, I was addicted to RuneScape. Every
evening after school, you'd find me cutting down trees, cooking, or venturing
into the PvP zone for some awesome gear. One day, someone retired from the
game by killing their character, which resulted in all of their items being
dropped. I lucked out and snagged more gold than I could have ever imaged. I
remember running around the house in joy.

In RuneScape at the time, there was another PvP zone where you could fight
another player and bet gold on whether you would win. Now having "expendable
gold" and false confidence, I dropped some big money on this PvP zone, and
over the course of a day, I lost it all. I was devastated. I've never lost a
ton of money in real life, but this left a really sick feeling in my stomach
even in the digital world.

Reflecting on this experience, I feel it has actually benefited me. I've
experienced the pain and risk that gambling can bring, and have never felt a
need to do this with my actual money. To me, games can be a sandbox to learn
life lessons without major consequences.

~~~
Grangar
I know right? Runescape back in the day was the perfect sandbox to learn these
lessons. I remember lending out my expensive sword to an online "friend" who
promptly logged off and blocked me. Lesson learned.

Nowadays all these sorts of transactions have been shifted into auction house-
like marketplaces to prevent abuse. I think taking out this human interaction
component does more harm than good, especially bundled with the new ability to
(legitimately) buy game money for real cash. The adversary moved from other
players taking your ingame stuff, to the game's maintainer itself taking real
world money.

------
antpls
If we ban loot boxes in video games, why dont we ban Magic/Pokemon card
boosters that you can buy from physical shops?

As it's written in the article, problems arise for a _minority_ of children.
From the article, we know little about the background of these children and
about their parents. It is possible that those children would have developed
an addiction to something else if it wasn't video games loot boxes. Yes, some
of them spend thousands, but what if they are millionaires's kids? They play
by different rules.

In my opinion, gambling in videos game means your kids will experience the
risk of gambling sooner, and if you watch your kid and educate them about it,
they can experience it in a safer environment than when they are adults.

To me, banning virtual loot boxes is extreme and doesynt solve the actual
problem (education programs are misaligned, lack of mental healthcare
programs, etc). Addiction might reveal a problem, but it's not necessary the
root cause.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
Because magic the gathering cards are an actual item tradeable for actual
money to other players and resellers. It's still questionable in many ways,
sure.

But many of these virtual items are closed economies with the supply entirely
owned by the producer of the game. These have no intrinsic value outside of
this closed system and there is no ability to exchange them for real money.

I'm not saying booster packs are necessarily morally correct either, but want
to highlight that there is a qualitative difference between them and most loot
box economies.

~~~
seventhtiger
So the reason Magic is different is because you are actually gambling for
things with monetary value? That doesn't sound right.

I'd think it'd be less like gambling if the rewards had no monetary value,
like random candies or skins in a video game. Then even the hope of getting
your money back isn't there. You know all you're getting is just candy or
toys.

~~~
daemin
The reason Magic is different is for 2 major reasons:

1) You can sell your cards and get money from them (could be less, could be
more) and they have some tangible value to other people.

2) You don't have to acquire magic cards through booster packs (aka loot
boxes) only. If you want a particular card then you can go to the store and
buy it. This was the major concern from the parent in the top comment of this
post, that you couldn't just buy the skin directly but had to gamble for it.

Additionally if you just want to play with your friends and experiment there's
no reason you can't just use proxy cards or fakes and have fun playing a deck.
Though that's not for tournaments or anything serious.

~~~
SkyBelow
>1) You can sell your cards and get money from them (could be less, could be
more) and they have some tangible value to other people.

Shouldn't this make it a bigger problem, not a smaller one?

>2) You don't have to acquire magic cards through booster packs (aka loot
boxes) only. If you want a particular card then you can go to the store and
buy it. This was the major concern from the parent in the top comment of this
post, that you couldn't just buy the skin directly but had to gamble for it.

I wonder if the skins were priced per their rarity values, would people still
be okay with it. Some mtg cards costs $1,000s. I wonder what people would say
if some game added loot boxes containing rare items that were worth similar
that players could then trade for money. My guess is people would respond far
more negative to this.

~~~
daemin
To be able to have point #2 you have to have point #1. Someone has to take the
risk to open the booster packs and get those cards out onto the market.
Sometimes business oriented people do that, other times a group of friends buy
a booster box to play with at the time. At least in these circumstances the
people opening the packs know what could happen.

I think if you could buy all of the items that were included in these loot
boxes then it wouldn't be as bad. You want skin X, just go ahead and buy it.
However there would still be a problem as people might pay way too much trying
to get that expensive item in a loot box than just paying for it.

~~~
a1369209993
> To be able to have point #2 you have to have point #1.

Well, no. You can require (on pain of jail time) that the producer provide all
N possible skins for individual sale at prices that add up to less than or
equal[0] the cost of N 1-skin loot boxes.

0: To preempt the obvious "make individual skins so expensive noone can
actually buy them" strategy.

------
FerretFred
This is a good idea, but they _really_ need to stop all the gambling
advertising disguised as kids games on daytime TV. I've observed (UK) that
daytime TV commercials mainly consist of Personal Injury Compensation, mail-
order-fashion and "games that you can play on your phone, tablet or computer".
Always brightly coloured, very animated, and always played by attractive
people. Often there's a "social" theme were the participants all get together
with their phones and tablets and game, er, gamble a day away together at
bingo. Very sad, very cynical and very pervasive. But hey, it brings in _lots_
of tax revenue, so it won't stop anytime soon.

~~~
robjan
I think those adverts are targeted at lonely housewives/husbands and the
unemployed rather than children. As you said, they make it seem like these
virtual fruit machine/bingo games are very social, when in fact the users are
probably sitting on their sofa alone. It's a similar problem though, it's
aimed at exploiting a problem (loneliness) and replacing it with another
problem which generates a recurring income.

------
tablethnuser
Remember when loot boxes promising valuable rookie cards of baseball players
captured America's youth and squandered the nation's fortune back in the 20th
century?

Or the countless families devastated by beanie baby addiction?

Me neither. Collectibles aren't the problem.

And it isn't gambling if you can't cash out. Why do you think there's so many
casino games in the app stores even though digital gambling is illegal? Cuz
they aren't gambling - they're hobbies. Thirty years ago you bought a $20
handheld slot device from the department store. Now you download an app.

~~~
nabergh
I don't think people are arguing that collectibles are the problem. They're
arguing that the gambling is.

In this context, we're defining gambling as exchanging money for a chance at
receiving something of value. I think that's a reasonable definition and it
certainly fits here.

~~~
someexgamedev
Do Happy Meals constitute gambling then, because they contain one of eight
great toys?

~~~
tialaramex
So this goes like lotteries and several other things we already write laws
about. What we care about is the behaviour. If your product triggers the
problem behaviour then that's a problem.

If I go to McDonalds and there's a queue of people buying Happy Meals because
they want a specific toy, and they either don't actually take the meal or it
goes straight in the garbage, that's a huge problem -> gambling.

If I go to McDonalds and every kid just seems to be eating Happy Meals and
enjoying whatever crap they got by chance, no problem -> not gambling.

You might argue, well, how can McDonalds control this? There are a bunch of
things they can do to avoid causing the problem and thus avoid triggering an
investigation. For example when somebody proposes "Ooh, let's make Toy #3 way
better than the others, and then also only give it out 0.1% of the time" don't
do that. That's going to trigger the problem. Or if a parent comes in and says
they really need Toy #6 and they're willing to give you the price of a Happy
Meal for that toy, you should say "Yes" and hand them the toy, if you insist
they keep buying Happy Meals to have a chance you are encouraging the problem
behaviour.

We see this stuff with other industries that trigger problem behaviour, we say
"Don't do that" and we tell them things they should avoid to prevent the
problem behaviour. Good actors work very hard to avoid a problem. Bad ones
work very hard to avoid getting caught. Either way we did our best to protect
people.

For example "Direct Sales" companies are told not to allow their "sales
partners" or whatever they choose to call them to build up stock, because
that's part of a negative behaviour. They're told to make sure those "sales
partners" are deriving revenue from actually selling the product, which is
ostensibly the point of their business, not from selling the opportunity to
also become a partner, which would be a Pyramid Scheme, also negative
behaviour. Invariably the people who own (and profit from) these companies
insist the problem behaviour isn't what they want, and yet so often they do
encourage it, because of course it makes them rich. Similarly with video game
gambling.

------
kmjg88nvf8
Where does the money come from, that the kids spend? Shouldn't it be the
parents concern to limit the spending?

While I despise many of the techniques used in modern games to make kids spend
money, I also prefer them learning about these things in games, rather than in
the real world (with much more money at stake).

One thing that cost us a lot of money for example are the "Panini collectible
cards", that predate the computer era. I don't know if they are a thing in the
US. Basically for soccer world cups and other events, you are supposed to
collect all the pictures of all the players. You buy packs of 5 with random
stickers, and you swap with your friends to fill the sticker book. It costs
ridiculous amounts of money (easy to spend 100€ or more, on a book with some
pictures). I grudgingly admitted to it, as it is almost a rite of passage in
European childhoods and a learning experience to some degree.

~~~
_Understated_
Aw man, you're bringing back memories of my childhood here: I spent all my
pocket money on those. Well, those and the chewing gum that had a "tattoo" in
them :)

I'm with you on the "what are the parents doing while this is going on?" camp.

My son, now 8, plays some games on the iPad. He's got a bunch of Lego games
and a couple of multiplayer games but he cannot interact with the other
players except to fight on the same team: so no chatting or anything like
that. In addition, he's been told he's not buying anything in-game and we've
locked down the iPad so that he can't... in fact it pops up a message if he
clicks anything to do with buying.

We've used the default list of acceptable websites when you lock down the
iPad. We may have removed a couple too and added Nickelodeon I think (for the
games on it) and a couple of others but nothing like YouTube... that's pure
shite imo!

He moans sometimes that his pal has Fortnite and he plays it at his house
sometimes but he's not getting it at our house.

In all honesty a Google search and a bit of time is all it takes for parents
to protect their kids online these days. No excuse.

~~~
thirdsun
Reading this I can't help but think that Apple Arcade has to be a huge success
with parents - a quality, woory-free gaming environment with fixed, affordable
cost.

------
scarface74
And this is the unsung hero of Apple's new Apple Arcade subscription -- 100
games, no loot boxes, pay to win crap. You can safely pay $4.99 and the entire
family can have access to the games without having to worry about this crap or
advertising.

It's a win for everyone.

Publishers are reportedly getting paid up front so they don't have to worry
about not making their money back on their investments.

Consumers avoid the above mention pitfalls of modern mobile gaming.

Apple is "commoditizing its complements" and making iOS/MacOS/iPadOS/tvOS a
more attractive platform for casual gaming.

EDIT: Corrected the price is $4.99 not $5.99.

~~~
nacs
> You can safely pay $5.99

Minor correction: It's $4.99 per month

------
madisfun
I wonder when someone in power finally recognizes that Magic the Gathering and
other CCGs, especially their digital versions, are essentially gambling
machines.

~~~
mschuster91
With collectible card games, one has at least a tangible, transferrable object
- meaning if someone wants to sell off their Pokemon/MtG cards, there is a
pretty healthy market available. Even if the original manufacturer would go
out of business, you would still have the assets.

With DLC gambling (which is what lootboxes really are), however, there are
many problems:

1) the device OS manufacturer (Google/iOS) can go out of business, rendering
the money one spent on the collectibles worthless

2) the application developer not providing updates for the software to run on
new OSes or revoking the software outright, leading to the same result

3) there is no real transferability - at best one can restore their account on
a different device, at worst (like in Train Conductor) there is no
transferability _at all_. Moving DLCs across platforms (Android <-> iOS <-> PC
<-> consoles) is extremely rare. Selling off the collected DLCs is not
possible anywhere.

~~~
madisfun
I'm not sure if transferrable and sellable rewards make CCGs less of a
gambling activity. If anything, obtaining a physical object which can be
exchanged for cash, with a potential for profit, is the definition of
gambling.

Non-transferrable rewards exploit the same weakness of the human psycology,
but offer even less in return.

Both kinds of gambling in games should be regulated. It's not easy to define
what constitutes a lootbox, and what kind of randomized output is safe. The
industry will probably argue that the lootboxes are actually randomized
content, not prizes.. From that point of view they sell a non-transferrable
experience (service), not a tangible item (product).

------
sdan
Agree that games that advertise loot-boxes should be restricted, given their
relatively addictive nature to impressionable children.

Children of younger ages shouldn't be exposed to this dopamine inducing idea
similar to that of slot machines.

~~~
xxs
The income from the loot boxes has to be taxed like gambling. It's a slot
machine (or FBT in the UK) essentially.

Possible there should be an option to self-define a spending limit (per month,
day, week) that cannot be increased immediately.

------
nurettin
How does a free market self-regulate this problem? What is the competitive
advantage of not providing chance items?

~~~
kmjg88nvf8
By providing better games, and parents waking up and closing the money faucet.

~~~
Cthulhu_
That's the thing though - games nowadays are ridiculously good. Doesn't mean
they're successful, but they're good.

And they don't even HAVE to be good - I mean pubg looks and runs like shit but
it was ridiculously popular. Fortnite's popular battle royale mode was more
like a weekend project (iirc), but it had a benefit over pubg in that it had a
big professional studio behind it that was able to scale its production up
enormously once Fortnite took off.

And Apex was developed from scratch (or well, probably based off of a lot of
work done for Titanfall) and intent. Another example is Overwatch, which was
salvaged from the remains of Blizzard's Project Titan.

Anyway long story short, a lot of these games are really really good. And
that's also why they have microtransactions (according to the manufacturers /
publishers) - they take a lot longer and cost a lot more to make. They (feel
like they) have to earn money from a game for at least one year, preferably
more after the initial release / purchase. (one year for the annual game
series - CoD, Assassin's Creed, FIFA, etc, more for the longer term ones that
will likely not get a sequel like Apex, Fortnite, even Minecraft).

~~~
kmjg88nvf8
Maybe there isn't really a problem with all of those games. To adults it seems
ridiculous to spend money on virtual items, but to be honest, a lot of other
things kids would spend their money on also seem ridiculous.

If those games cost a lot of money to make, perhaps it is fair to ask for
money for some items.

~~~
tialaramex
The nasty trick isn't the "asking for money for some items". As you observe
that's not so different from asking for money for sugar candy, it's basically
useless but it did cost money to make and you don't need it per se, so fine.

But what is being called out here as _gambling_ is that you pay your money and
then you get something random. It will probably be something you don't want,
it might even be something you consider utterly useless.

Example: You want the Funky Guitar for Tara, your favourite character in a
game. A Funky Guitar is "often" found in a Cluster Artefact the game tells
you. For $10 you can buy 480 diamond blibbets. For 600 diamond blibbets you
can buy a Cluster Artefact, so you give them $20, now you have 960 diamond
blibbets, you can buy a Cluster Artefact. The Cluster Artefact is then smashed
open by your character to reveal... a Top Hat wearable only by Steve, a
character you hate playing. Too bad, buy more blibbets and maybe Tara will get
lucky next time?

Gambling. A bad idea for grown-ups, obviously not something we should
encourage children to do.

~~~
kmjg88nvf8
Sure, but they will be confronted with that trick in their lives. Maybe they
can learn that it is a waste of resources.

------
dingdingdang
That should also include watching adverts as a competitive advantage within
games marketed for kids - it leads to constant intake of essentially user
hostile videos being shown to young kids and it's predatory imho.

------
nscalf
I came into this thread with a strong opinion: Ban loot boxes. I think they
weaken the value of all gaming, and I think they take advantage of people.
Plenty of things have been banned for attempting to take advantage of people.

Going through this thread, I am softer on the view, but I think there is two
big differences between what most people here are saying. First, with cards,
you have a physical exchange of money---kids see that money going away and
they can't just hit "OK" in a game again to spend money. Second, with online
games like demonbae mentioned, you are spending your own money, not your
parents money. YOU reap the consequences, not your parents bank account.

I'm less convinced these need to be banned, but I still don't see any upside
for people who are not benefiting by getting as much money as possible to be
spent in their game.

------
aglionby
I completely agree -- it's exploitative and relies on parental intervention
for those kids who don't know any better. As others have mentioned, these
could be an educational opportunity, but I don't think the experiences
described here are representative.

My exposure to these things isn't through any free apps, but Minecraft. The
biggest server by player number has 9 different types of boxes for sale from
$3 for 10 [1]. Some of them guarantee a number of boxes at a high 'level' of
reward - this seems like reinforcing gambling as something that is certain to
be beneficial?

[1] [https://store.hypixel.net/](https://store.hypixel.net/)

------
travisoneill1
It might actually be better to let them learn the hard way before they have
real money to lose. Has anyone studied the relation between this and gambling
as an adult?

------
tudorw
Great, finally some movement on regulating the children's video gaming
industry, it's a total disgrace and reflects very poorly on the tech industry
that it's most vulnerable users are frequently the least considered. The UK is
working on some of the worlds most progressive child protection legislation
and I hope they create an example that will be adopted worldwide.

------
darepublic
Too old to have gambled in games as a kid, but I was at the right age for the
POG phenomenon. I remember a rough afternoon at the schoolyard where I went
past my limit and lost some of my most cherished pogs.

------
bazooka_penguin
Why this coming into the spotlight now as opposed to collectible sports cards,
trading carding games, coin operated gacha/cache capsule machines, etc?

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
With trading cards, you can trade with your friends, or buy rare cards on
Ebay. Since they're physical, there's no DRM. With skinner boxes, most games
don't let you transfer skins so there's no marketplace and the only way to get
rare skins is to buy coins and gamble.

~~~
bazooka_penguin
Physical comes with its own set of problems, like bootlegs, which I've fallen
before. And there are games that do have aftermarkets like PUBG and Counster
Strike iirc. Are those blameless? They were/are some of the biggest lootbox
games actively played today

Edit: it's to its

------
Yuval_Halevi
Good point. 99% of the games for smartphones are free but involved a lot of
gambling.

You might win a price every few minutes. It makes people pretty addictive to
the games

------
dominicr
I wonder if the reluctance of the gaming industry to tackle gambling is
willful or due to ignorance of the issue. Either they understand the issue but
it's their profits at stake, so they'll ignore the potential problems. Or have
these stealth gambling mechanisms entered the games gradually and without the
industry realising that what it's doing is actually gambling and there
repercussions to that.

~~~
tudorw
The idea that they are ignorant is repugnant, they know exactly what they are
doing, and they have ALL the data that shows how the 'child whales' of their
industry can be best exploited.

~~~
pferde
Indeed they know very well what they're doing. One could even say that they're
openly spitting in the face of regulators' inability to do something about it,
see for example a trailer for a new NBA game, where you mostly see literal
casino-like gambling machines, and only a few seconds of actual gameplay on a
basketball court:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGZQDOOU6Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcGZQDOOU6Y)

EDIT: The above link is not the trailer itself, but a video discussing the
trailer, from an independent game critic who has been speaking out against
gambling mechanics in computer games for many years, long before it became a
big issue.

------
knlam
This has me thinking all games with loot box mechanic should be labeled 18+

------
DanBC
The actual report is here:
[https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-
a-z...](https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-
select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/immersive-technology-
report-17-19/)

I found this remarkable: "‘Lack of honesty and transparency’ reported among
representatives of some games and social media companies in giving evidence."

Some quotes from the report:

> 62.We were contacted by a member of the public whose adult son built up
> considerable debts, reported to be in excess of £50,000, through spending on
> microtransactions in British company Jagex’s online game RuneScape. For
> example, bank statements showed that in one day the individual spent £247.95
> by making five separate payments to the company. The resulting debt caused
> significant financial harm for both the player and his parents, whose
> evidence attributed the situation to the fact that Jagex has no limits on
> the amount of time or money players can spend on the game.118 This
> demonstrated to us that even companies with good policies to support some
> aspects of player wellbeing can fall short in other areas.

You don't take £50,000 from a player in microtransactions without realising
something is fucked up.

> 65.With so many games featuring microtransactions, we asked other leading
> games companies what they do to prevent people from spending more than they
> are able to in a game. Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite: Battle Royale,
> said that although it has no specific cap on how much people can spend,
> purchases are limited to what is in the virtual shop and so the maximum
> anyone could spend would be about $200 a day.124 The company’s director of
> marketing suggested that it is an individuals’ responsibility to manage
> spending and that the company provides tools, including parental controls,
> “to allow players to make those decisions for themselves.”125 However, as we
> have already examined, parental controls are of limited effectiveness when
> it comes to adult players.

> 66.The games companies we spoke to were generally reluctant to accept that
> they might have a role or responsibility to intervene proactively if a
> player’s spending fell outside of normal patterns. Moreover, they said that
> it would be too difficult to determine what level of spending might be
> harmful. Alex Dale, senior vice president for King, the makers of Candy
> Crush Saga, told us that while it used to alert users when they reached a
> certain spending threshold, it had stopped doing so because of player
> feedback. He told us:

>> we would send an e-mail out when a player’s spend was $250 in a week for
the first time. It was an e-mail that said, “We notice you are enjoying the
game a lot at the moment. Are you sure you are happy with this?” […] We got
back, “I wouldn’t spend the money if I didn’t have it” and things like, “I’m
fine, please leave me alone”. We felt it was too intrusive so we stopped doing
that.126

> 67.Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones told us that the games industry might learn
> from approaches in the gambling industry, which has much clearer, industry-
> wide protocols enabling people to self-exclude from spending.127 She told us
> that “gaming is several years behind gambling in relation to protecting the
> vulnerable”, a situation that the then Minister described, if true, as
> “lamentable”, adding that “the industry has a job to do.”128 When we asked
> Neil McArthur, Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, whether games
> companies should be obligated to monitor how much people spend, identify
> people with a problem and proactively support them, he responded that, “this
> is an area where progress needs to be made.”129 His colleague Brad Enright
> went on to tell us that self-exclusion measures to protect players “could be
> adopted by the video games industry voluntarily to address some of the
> concerns about excessive time [and] excessive expenditure.”130 Yet the Royal
> College of Psychiatrists goes further in suggesting that:

> > There should be no in game spending by children. Children are less
> prepared to deal with the potentially addictive nature of some modern
> computer games and are less able to make informed decisions about
> spending.131

Apple, Google, and game makers need to understand what's happening here. This
is a push towards regulation. They need to implement pretty effective self
regulation or UK government will impose strong regulation upon the industry.

~~~
Slippery_John
> Apple, Google, and game makers need to understand what's happening here.

I'm pretty sure Apple understands. That seems like the whole point behind
their new game subscription deal - the games included aren't allowed to have
microtransactions. On the other end of things their screen time and ask to buy
features are global, powerful, and not super hard to discover.

Google has similar parental control tools, though that's tempered by the fact
that they can't be made global. The Fortnite port on Android, for instance,
completely side steps it.

That said, I'm pretty sure neither stores make distinction between gambling
and other forms of in app purchases.

------
deepnet
Sounds like a solution a desk jockey lawmaker, or at least to their knee-
jerking constituent pitch-fork mob demanding justus wouls come up with!

But in reality a ban prevents regulation and will usher in an era of illegal
underground loot-box mods with hyper effective sublimal hypno-tech.

Well I mean the prohibtion of kitten-huffing should be example enough of the
consequences of an unregulated drugs bazaar.

Better to have government issued loot boxes provided to children at school,
like the UK lottery or the sugar-tax

/Sarcasm

But seriously the way things play out on the street is rarely how they look on
paper as idealistic laws.

The solution ?

A little of both ;-)

