Use of Loot Boxes in Console Games

[peter]

A friend at work who keeps up to speed with most of the new big game releases was telling me this week that in the last twelve months barely a new one had come out that did not make extensive use of 'loot box' options as a central plank of it's gameplay. He thought that this was doubly pernicious, firstly because of the introduction of a 'random loot box', where the paid for in hard cash benefit might be small or large, and the process became effectively a foem of gambling with all of the attendant risks that entails, and secondly because progress through the game could effectively be bought rather than achieved, and in online multiplayer game scenarios this had a detrimental effect on the quality of the play.

This is a phenomena that as a single only, and never online player I have never encountered and I wondered if any of you guys have any thoughts on it?

[wayfriend]

You're not the only one finding it so.

ESRB says video game loot boxes don't qualify as 'gambling,' despite similarities
It certainly plays on the same human weaknesses to make money as gambling does.

[Avatar]

They're not even restricted to multi-player. IIRC, some of the recent Assassin's Creed games had a very similar mechanic. You don't have to use it of course (I never do), but its very existence is offensive to me.

I saw recently that the UK government may get involved in the question: https://www.polygon.com/2017/10/15/1647 ... egality-uk

--A

[peter]

Given the access that kids have to gaming stations, I'd have thought some serious regulatory mechanisms were in order.