{"id":5016,"date":"2019-09-17T08:12:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T12:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2019-09-17T08:12:56","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T12:12:56","slug":"uk-parliament-wants-loot-boxes-to-be-regulated-as-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realmoneygambling.com\/news\/uk-parliament-wants-loot-boxes-to-be-regulated-as-gambling\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Parliament Wants Loot Boxes to Be Regulated as Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

A few days ago, the Commons finally published their\nlong-awaited research into immersive and addictive technologies, a move that shed\nmore light on a very controversial issue. For the past few years, the online gaming\nlandscape has been abuzz with debates regarding the prevalence of loot boxes\nand skins and their relation to gambling. The research report that was\npublished by the Member of Parliament (MPs) has finally drawn a clear line through\nsome proposals and recommendations that will certainly have a huge impact on\nthe video game industry going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n

In the report, the MPs called on the country’s government to regulate the loot boxes that are found in a number of popular video games under the current gambling legislation. In addition to that, they want the government to implement a blanket ban on the sale of the loot boxes and skins to players who are below the legal gambling age<\/a>. According to them, these underage players should instead be able to earn in-game credits to allow them to unlock the contents of the loot boxes.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

These recommendations<\/a> were made by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport\u2019s (DCMS) parliamentary committee after they conducted an enquiry into immersive and addictive technologies that are provided by video game publishers. During the enquiry, the parliamentary committee collected evidence from several tech companies including Snapchap and Epic Games among others<\/strong>. In addition to that, the committee further collected information from the gamers themselves and the finding were very disturbing \u2013 for instance, one of the users spent close to \u00a31,000 per year<\/strong> on loot box mechanics in FIFA while another player is reported to have racked up over \u00a350,000 in debts<\/strong> by spending money on micro-transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n

Obviously, this is a huge step in the regulation of video\ngame loot boxes especially because it finally draws the line with regards to whether\nor not loot boxes and skins are forms of gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n

The Church of England Weighs In<\/h2>\n\n\n

Even though it is the last place that one would expect to\nhave an opinion on the nagging issue of loot boxes, the Church of England through\nthe reverend Dr. Alan Smith, bishop of St. Albans said that the video game\npublishers have been adding “harmful products” such as loot boxes into\ntheir games and by so doing, the companies were gambling with the lives of children.<\/p>\n\n\n

“Harmful and addictive products flooding children\u2019s games cast a dark shadow over the colorful world of childhood play. Games should be a place of adventure and discovery, not a vehicle for profit-making at children\u2019s expense,” the reverend said<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

It is one thing when elected officials or governmental bodies speak about the issue but the entry of the church<\/a> into this debate will certainly turn a few heads. It should not be long before heads start rolling.<\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few days ago, the Commons finally published their long-awaited research into immersive and addictive technologies, a move that shed more light on a very controversial issue. For the past few years, the online gaming landscape has been abuzz with debates regarding the prevalence of loot boxes and skins and their relation to gambling. The […]","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[266,178,374,375,187,40,248],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation","tag-gambling-law","tag-loot-boxes","tag-mps","tag-parliament","tag-regulation","tag-uk","tag-video-games"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUK Parliament Wants Loot Boxes to Be Regulated as Gambling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"UK MPs have called on the country's government to regulate the loot boxes that are found in a number of popular video games under the current gambling legislation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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