A Washington legislator wants to closely study so-called “loot boxes” video games that require money for a chance at prizes, as a form of gambling.
Senator Kevin Ranker has introduced a bill that would ask Washington officials and game developers to determine if the loot boxes, and other similar video games, targets children.
Ranker told the News Tribune, “What the bill says is, ‘Industry, state: sit down to figure out the best way to regulate this,’” Ranker said. “It is unacceptable to be targeting our children with predatory gam-bling masked in a game with dancing bunnies or something.”
The bill joins the growing movement to battle the mixing of gaming and children’s toys that critics complain are a disguised form of gambling.
Belgium has begun an investigation and recent an Hawaiian legislator proposed a law to prevent children from playing loot boxes. He points to Star Wars Battlefront II, a video game manufactured by Electronic Arts, as such a “trap” designed to lure children into spending money.
The Washington Gambling Commission has so far not taken a position on loot boxes.
An addiction counselor for the Evergreen Council for Problem Gambling, Jim Leingang, told the News Tribune, “every hand in the room went up” at a recent youth prevention summit when he polled the crowd to see how many had heard of the video games.
Leingang asked the crowd if they were familiar with loot boxes. “This is the sort of issue people don’t really know about. You don’t realize your kids in trouble until you get a credit card statement.”
Recently the World Health Organization added video game addiction to the classification of new disorders it recognizes.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board, a nonprofit that rates video games for age-appropriateness, recently told the Tacoma News Tribune, “The ESRB does not consider loot boxes to be gambling. While the digital goods within a box or pack are mostly randomized, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content.”
Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling believes gaming manufacturers are relying more on mechanics that in many ways mimic gambling to make money. “They’re ever looking for ways to make these games and they’re becoming more aggressive—and for our concerns—more risky for addiction,” he said.
