The U.K. Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport expects to ask for evidence on loot boxes, the increasingly common feature of video games such as the football franchise Fifa.
Loot boxes permit players—including children—to spend money on in-game rewards such as special characters or equipment, without knowing what they will get. There is increasing concern that loot boxes encourage gambling-style behavior in children, potentially leading them into addiction in later life.
The value of loot boxes to the video game industry has been estimated at £23 billion (US$28.9 billion) a year, thanks to revenues that keep coming in after the initial purchase of the game.
If ministers opt to reclassify loot boxes, the decision would have a significant impact on game developers, who could be forced to withdraw some titles or redesign them so that they can be sold to people under 18.
Although use of loot boxes involves an element of chance, they do not fall under existing gambling legislation, and therefore not regulated by the Gambling Commission. The items won are not considered to have monetary value.
However, the DCMS select committee heard evidence last year that loot box winnings can be exchanged for cash on third-party websites and that their use by game developers was likely to “facilitate profiting from problem gamblers.”
In a subsequent report, the committee suggested they be considered gambling products, according to the U.K. Guardian.
“They are a virtually speculative commodity that only helps to normalize and encourage young people to take a chance,” said the Labor MP Carolyn Harris, who chairs a cross-party group of MPs investigating gambling-related harm. “All too often this will lead to youngsters developing an addiction to gambling.”
Countries like Belgium have deemed loot boxes to be gambling products, leading some companies to pull their games out of the market.
Research by academics at the University of York published last year found that loot boxes were found in about 71 percent of the most popular titles on the gaming portal Steam, compared with 4 percent a decade ago.
Any change to regulating loot boxes could be part of a broader overhaul of gambling legislation.
