Loot boxes: fun part of games or gambling?

Loot boxes or variations of loot boxes have been in games for a long time. The thrill of having a chance to get something rare or of a high value to use in the game is an aspect that appeals a lot of gamers. But over the past few years, loot boxes have been in some controversy, because they supposedly represent gambling. For that reason, many game developers have canceled this feature in their games.

Loot boxes work as follows: the game provides different types of ‘boxes’, which all contain in-game items, ranging from normal to rare. The rarer the item, the lower the possibility of it appearing in the box. The box can be bought with in-game currency that can be earned by playing the game.

However, some games also allow players to buy the in-game currency with real life money, with which they can thus buy the loot boxes. Since the players are not certain that they will receive a rare or highly valued item, this practice can be considered as gambling. This is the reason for the controversy, mainly because the largest part of the gaming audience is under aged, and not allowed to gamble. In some of countries, like Belgium and the Netherlands, loot boxes even have been banned for certain games.

How should the game firms resolve this problem? Giving possibility of getting a good item by displaying the percentage of it appearing has been a FIFA’s solution. Another solution is to verify the age of the player, so they would be legally allowed to gamble. However, it is very easy to lie about your age, and therefore this will likely not be an acceptable solution in the long term.

The need to change the loot box system has become quite important over the last few years. This trend will probably continue over the next couple years, since only small number of countries have actually taken action. However, deleting the whole feature will likely drastically decrease the enjoyment of games. The gaming industry has a difficult decision to make.