The industry’s disingenuous defense of loot boxes | This Week in Business

Legal Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox Earlier this month, the Australian House of Representatives’ Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee held public hearings into various aspects of online gambling, including loot boxes in video games. During those hearings, legislators heard from consumer rights’ advocates and academics about fostering gambling addiction in children and normalizing gambling in culture, manipulative design patterns, research suggesting loot boxes as a gateway activity to undisputable gambling activities, the logistical challenges around legislating loot boxes, and how they might best be overcome. The industry’s point of view was represented by two trade groups, the International Social Games Association (ISGA) and the Australian video games trade body Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA). Their defenses of loot boxes were, for the most part, predictable. They said existing consumer protection laws could address the problem, as if the industry would not fight tooth and nail against any attempt to apply existing laws to loot boxes. Their [IGEA and ISGA] defenses of loot boxes were, for the most part, predictable… But they also said some other, weirder stuff They said most players seem to really enjoy loot boxes, as if pointing to the obscene amount of money people spend on a product is an effective defense to accusations that it is addictive. They said there’s no scientifically established causal relationship between loot boxes and gambling, as if untold harm wasn’t done in the decades before we could stop having arguments about whether there was a scientifically established causal relationships between smoking and cancer, or fossil fuel consumption and global warming. They said – repeatedly – that the industry has parental spending controls and ratings systems, as if it makes sense to rely on “solutions” that pre-date the problem and did nothing to prevent it in the first place. But they also said some other, weirder stuff. QUOTE | “You are removing them from the protection of the [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] by putting them under the gambling act. You are then moving all those players who play games today with no issues whatsoever, all for fun, into the same bucket as illegal offshore gambling. I don’t think that is good for Australian consumers. If you were to say that this simulated gambling or social casino was gambling under the act, then you are putting those players at risk. As we heard earlier, when people are pushed into those dangerous areas, they are exposed to far less regulated environments.” – ISGA CEO Michael Luc argued that classifying loot boxes as gambling would actually provide consumers with less protection. I wonder if Luc realized he’s echoing the harm reduction rationale for drug legalization. He’s suggesting it’s better to have the unsavory business of loot boxes done above board and under government scrutiny than to have addicts dealing with criminals to get their fix. QUOTE | “What we
Game Industry source