The industry's disingenuous defense of loot boxes | This Week in Business
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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
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
