Loot Box News

Ever since Star Wars Battlefront II launched with a multiplayer progression system heavily influenced by loot boxes, the gaming world has frowned on such systems without fail. The community doesn’t like the idea of a player’s progression being significantly affected by how much money they’re willing to pour into microtransactions. That being said, microtransactions do not necessarily equate to loot boxes, something a lot of people tend to forget. Halo Infinite will have microtransactions. However, it will not have loot boxes.

It seems that the loot box controversy that spiked years ago when Battlefront II came out is still making waves across the world as a whole, with many nations considering what role they will play in their legal assessment of gambling. A mere month after the government of the United Kingdom made a call to acquire evidence regarding the function of loot boxes and whether or not they should be regulated more than they are right now, a House of Lords Select Committee on gambling has deemed that loot boxes should immediately be re-classified from their current status to gambling, according to GameIndustry.biz.

At a Federal Trade Commission public panel regarding micro transactions in video games, the Entertainment Software Association that the three largest console platform holders, those being Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, have voluntarily agreed to a policy change regarding loot boxes. While ESA’s Michael Warnecke broadly defended the concept of loot boxes, he also stated that any new games or game updates from now on would need to disclose the rarity of the various drops included in their loot boxes.