UK trade body recommends restricting loot boxes to over 18s

Ukie’s new guidelines propose age-restricting loot boxes in video games.

UK.- Loot boxes remain a controversial mechanic in video games, with various national governments and gambling regulators investigating whether they should be considered gambling. Now, the UK games industry trade group, UK Interactive Entertainment (Ukie), has published guidelines recommending that loot boxes be age-restricted to over 18s.

The Ukie has recommended that loot boxes be made completely unavailable to minors unless enabled by a parent or guardian. Its 11 guidelines include the implementation of technological controls to prevent access by under 18s without parental consent. It also proposes actions be taken to raise awareness of the controls.

Meanwhile, the use of loot boxes in a game must be made clear before purchase or download to allow players to be fully informed. Ukie also proposes the creation of an expert panel on age assurance in the video games industry and a commitment to lenient refund policies on loot boxes purchased without the knowledge of a parent or guardian.

Ukie’s Technical Working Group was formed by the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in July 2022 after the government’s call for evidence on loot boxes in September 2020. Several stakeholders, including UK children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza, had claimed that young people using loot boxes in video games were effectively partaking in underage gambling since loot boxes require real money or in-game money payments to unlock in-game features or tools with the result depending on luck.

The DCMS has praised the recommendation for parental consent and called on the video games industry to tighten parental controls. It said in a statement: “We welcome the clear commitment in the new industry guidance to use technological controls to restrict anyone under the age of 18 from acquiring a paid loot box without the consent or knowledge of a parent or guardian.

“As part of implementing its guidance, we call on industry to increase and monitor the uptake of parental controls, and to ensure widespread adoption of current best practice of default £0 spending limits on child accounts, applying both to loot boxes and other in-game purchases.”

Ukie Co-CEO Daniel Wood said: “Publishing these shared principles for how the industry approaches loot boxes is a UK first and provides us with a clear direction moving forwards. The principles will improve protections for all players and underlines the industry’s commitment to safe and responsible play.

“We look forward to working collaboratively across industry and with others to implement them over the coming months.”

Spain has recently announced steps to draw up technical regulations for loot boxes, making it a first in Europe. Meanwhile, Belgium has banned the mechanism completely.

Germany’s video game age-rating body Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle now considers the presence of loot boxes when deciding the age rating for games. In March, an Austrian court ruled that FIFA loot boxes are a form of gambling and must be labelled as such. It found that because the contents of a loot box are determined by chance and are worth more or less than what a player paid, the mechanism violates Austrian gambling laws.