UK Govt. Slam Loot Boxes & Want Them Banned!

The British government should regulate loot boxes under gambling law, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.

After nearly nine months of evidence gathering, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee today published its 84-page report into immersive and addictive technologies.

Chief among its list of recommendations were that paid loot boxes should be regulated under gambling law, and there be a ban on selling them to children.

The inquiry took evidence from all corners of the industry -- including developers, trade bodies, and academics -- and reported a "lack of honesty and transparency" among social media and game company representatives.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1846/184606.htm
75.Much of the evidence that we received from gamers critiqued the loot box mechanics in Electronic Arts’s FIFA series. In the game’s ‘Ultimate Team’ mode, players build their own football team by buying virtual ‘packs’ containing a randomised selection of footballers. To purchase these packs, players use ‘coins’ that are earned in the game and ‘points’ purchased for real-world money. In 2016, EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen told investors that the Ultimate Team mode accounted for roughly half of the $1.3 billion the company makes from extra digital content—that is equivalent to $650 million in annual revenue, in addition to that generated by units sales of the full games.143

76.Electronic Arts releases a new game in the FIFA series every year. However, with each new release, players’ teams are not transferred over and therefore they must rebuild their teams by purchasing more packs to acquire the best players. One gamer told us that this cycle resulted in them spending “almost £800 to £1000 a year annually on FIFA”.144 Another gamer told us that because a pack’s contents “directly affects gameplay because some players are not as good as others”, it incentivises people to keep buying packs in the hope of getting better players and, therefore, performing better in the game. They told us that:

in order to compete, players feel like they need to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of £s worth of packs in order to get the best players. Children are especially vulnerable because they lack the maturity to understand that these purchases are manipulative, and their parents may not understand that these purchases are entirely unnecessary.145

77.Moreover, because the probability of securing some footballers in a pack is less than 1%, some gamers have expressed frustration at spending vast amounts without receiving the desired reward.146 To tackle the issue of speculative spending on loot boxes, one player recommended that:

the sale of items in game, cosmetic or otherwise, should only be allowed via direct purchase or via achievements unlocked through in game actions. In a loot box type system the player, typically, has a very small chance of unlocking the item they actually want. This encourages further spending on loot boxes in order to get the item they want.147

78.We put some of these concerns to Kerry Hopkins from Electronic Arts, who responded that the way they have implemented this mechanic in FIFA “is quite ethical and quite fun”.148 Yet this is noticeably out of step with the attitude of many of the gamers who contacted us following our evidence session, including those who vehemently rejected her characterisation of packs not as loot boxes but as “surprise mechanics”.149 One gamer called the company’s testimony to us “a bare face lie”, and another told us that the company has:

heavily marketed and referred to their systems as ‘loot boxes’ for several years and […] the mechanics of the system are exactly the same no matter what they choose to call it.150

79.We recommend that loot boxes that contain the element of chance should not be sold to children playing games, and instead in-game credits should be earned through rewards won through playing the games. In the absence of research which proves that no harm is being done by exposing children to gambling through the purchasing of loot boxes then we believe the precautionary principle should apply and they are not permitted in games played by children until the evidence proves otherwise.

The Bishop of St. Albans has weighed in on loot boxes following the UK House of Commons report. Yes, the Church of England has opinions on in-game gambling!

While I'm not exactly a holy man myself, I do find it amusing to see the game industry getting it from all corners. The pasting that publishers are taking in the press is well deserved, too. They earned this with their arrogant ignorance of the issue.

Jesus officially hates loot boxes... confirmed!
source:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/15/addictive-video-game-features-should-banned-children-gateway/

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I think we know how NBA 2K20 got the E for everyone rating, with simulated gambling; The Chairman of the board of the #ESRB and #ESA is the CEO of Take Two, Strauss Zelnick.