The Children's Commissioner in England has called on the government to class loot boxes as gambling

Quoting: denyasisMy family was watching tv while I was at work. We use a roku for our tv. My wife went to use the rest room while the kids were finishing their show. All of a sudden she gets an email thanking her for her online purchase of a Harry Potter movie.

Turns out our kindergartener opened the Amazon Prime app and saw the movie and decided to watch it cause "I saw a toy like that at the site and it looked cool"

Did you have your credit card stored in the device? This is a common mistake on Android/iOS devices given to children. If they want to purchase things then they should have to bring the device to you for you to enter your card details.

Sure, on a shared device like a Roku, it makes it more awkward for the adults in the house to purchase stuff but it's definitely worth it. I guess the scope for damage on a Roku is relatively limited but in-app purchases on mobile devices can run up huge charges very quickly.


Last edited by Scattershot on 23 October 2019 at 11:48 am UTC

Quoting: fagnerlnHERE WE GO AGAIN...

We don't need the government controlling even more our lives, the parents should moderate what their children are using.

Like it or not, "loot boxes" are a form of gambling and whilst the game industry has not been "ruined" because of them, "loot boxes" have certainly done a lot of damage to the industry (as have "freemium" games - but that's another discussion)... I agree that having the Government take control is not necessarily the best approach, but if it's going to reduce the number of "loot boxes" used in games, then the end absolutely justifies the means.

Of course, nothing has actually happened yet and nothing may even happen - if my understanding of this article is correct, the "Children's Commissioner" has only made a recommendation, which may or may not see results; given everything going on in Britain at the moment, I don't see this being a priority.

Good on you, Britain!

As they're a commercial game of chance, loot boxes are, in fact, gambling.

Whether or not a society decides that children should or shouldn't be allowed to engage in this form of gambling is a corollary, but otherwise separate, issue, and is up to the society in question. Personally, I'm opposed to loot boxes in video games, but inasmuch as they are allowed to be there, then let those games be subject to the same laws governing gambling.

I think that the use of loot boxes in video games is wholly predatory in nature. seeking as it does to profit by taking advantage of the naive and unformed minds of children. At the very least, games which include loot boxes should be subject to the same laws that regulate other commercial gambling in a society.

But there's really no practical debate here. Loot boxes are gambling. They're just a very new form of gambling and society is still reacting to them. But we are reacting, and as we have decided to regulate other forms of gambling, so too we'll regulate loot boxes. Right now we're just going through the process.


Last edited by Nanobang on 23 October 2019 at 12:39 pm UTC

Quoting: Tets

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: fagnerln

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: fagnerlnAh, and talking about drugs, I bet that mostly of you in the comments support the "free drugs" movement. "People are free to use any drug they want, because they 'own' yourselves, but gambling, nah, please government, save them", ironic

Ironically, you pointed at the difference between adults and kids yourself in the very same posting...

The adult is responsible for the children, not the government, is that hard to get?

I known a boy that used their father's credit card, ONCE. The father explained to him that this is a bad thing. Maybe if the father spent some time with the kid, maybe this didn't happened the first time.

You are so incredibly naive and narrow minded, I'm genuinely amazed.

I've seen first-hand how gambling can ruin an adult's life, just as much as a child.

So, because some are irresponsible, we all need to be supervised? Sorry, no. I like my freedom (even to do stupid things). It's my life and my money. And I don't even like games with microtransactions, loot boxes, ...
And yeah, government is like mafia. Probably worse, mafia takes your money and then leaves you alone (mostly). Government takes your money and with it tells you what you can (and can't!) do, how to behave, what to do with your life... I'm a human, not an ant or Chinese. I grew up in socialism and the West is going that way right now with all this bullshit. Sad.
Sorry for that, I'll try to refrain from politics, it's a website about games.

I can't believe how in one comment someone can show so much ignorance and racism. Reported, by the way.

Quoting: Arehandoro

Quoting: Tetsgovernment is like mafia. Probably worse, mafia takes your money and then leaves you alone (mostly). Government takes your money and with it tells you what you can (and can't!) do, how to behave, what to do with your life... I'm a human, not an ant or Chinese.

I can't believe how in one comment someone can show so much ignorance and racism. Reported, by the way.

*facepalm* Can someone mention a well-known criminal society and implicate a (for all intents and purposes) totalitarian country and not be castigated for saying that their systems are not good and remind him of how corrupted some governments or organizations go?

All italians are not affiliated with the mafia. All chinese citizens are not their government.

*phew* That aside, since this dumpster fire's been fanned nicely by Liam (this isn't Twitter, so it provides much less benefit for you to insult GoL commenters whose positions you dislike on GoL), I'll mention a new concern about this this law, particularly this section:

* Games distributed online should get a legally enforceable age-rating system like physical games

Now, it's been a long time since I last bought a physical game, but so far as I know, as long as a parent is with a child/teen at the time of purchase, the age-rating systems don't matter, as it's a matter of parental override on the rules. It works that way for games, and works that way for movies. (At least when someone at the cash register/ticket counter gives a crap about the law more than making money, it varies.)

If the UK government wants ID to be legally enforceable in the digital space, would it limit kids from playing games their parents may have no problems with? Is the same kind of in-person parental override even possible? In addition, it's the same thing as the "porn license" idea, it's a way of tracking what UK citizens are doing online. Even if the cause is decent (lootboxes are probably addictive, and it's also too easy to 'borrow' a parent's credit card number and security code), the way it could be implemented sounds disturbing.

Do we want anybody other than Steam or people looking at our public profile to be know what games we're playing and when? If they mandate the ID for kids, who can say if it won't spread to adults as well, just to make game distributors cover their asses further? Would the GDPR-like fallback rules when Brexit may (may not?) happen also apply to government children's ID data collection?

If we're going to be keeping companies cleaner, are such heavy-handed measures really necessary in the pursuit of fewer people getting ripped off by publishers and devs? If the regulation were focused on the companies, they could implement government-mandated restrictions on themselves regardless of age (no age limit on addiction, right?). But no, it's easier for citizens to be forced to act instead of making businesses unhappy with direct regulation. Laissez-faire capitalism doesn't work, *some* regulation should be in place. Then again, I'd be reluctant to regulate any entity that has millions in potential taxes for my country and could shuffle the funds off to a tax haven at a moments' notice.

Not an easy thing for government to do, no matter how you look at it. But making your (relatively) poorer citizens do the work is an easier move that will feel good in the short term, no doubt. Most of the ideas put forth are probably impossible without a central tracking system in which data may be completely out of the hands of the citizens to control.

Yeah, I know, Five Eyes countries do this all the time between one another, no surprise, but should we be encouraging that kind of tacitly accepted surveillance towards the behaviour of our more vulnerable children?


Last edited by namiko on 23 October 2019 at 4:32 pm UTC

Quoting: ScattershotWith regard to gambling, or any addictive activity, the law should not be banning adults from engaging in it. However, it should regulate providers to ensure that they are not taking advantage of their clients.

I'm not sure I understand how a profitable gambling establishment can exist without taking advantage of its clients. It's giving them nothing and taking their money, by definition. What you're describing is the establishment of some sort of consensus of how much "taking advantage" our society considers reasonable. But as soon as you acknowledge that, it becomes clear that this is not a line that must exist at a particular place as you're trying to say, but rather that there are a constellation of social values that contribute to where we might want to put that line.

And if we actually wanted to ensure that there is no taking-advantage happening, we would in fact have to make gambling enterprises illegal. There may be countervailing reasons not to. But the only gambling that can even theoretically happen without someone being taken advantage of would be peer-to-peer.

(The main reason not to make gambling illegal seems to be analogous to the drug thing--it will happen anyway and if it's illegal it will be unregulated, untaxed and dominated by organized crime. Where I live these arguments lost a bit of force for me when it became clear that our legal casinos are still major conduits for money laundering, including drug money, and because of corruption free market policies, they don't pay much tax either, and unlike an illegal gambling den, which would surely be locally owned, these are foreign owned so the profits disappear from the local economy. Come to think of it, unlike the legal kind, illegal gambling can't actually launder money because the results are still . . . illegal. Illegal gambling hells are starting to look good by comparison. Most of these arguments don't apply to drugs, though. If drugs are legal you do seem to get tax money, the organized crime does seem to drain out, and you can divert funds from enforcement and jailing to treatment, and the addicts don't need to hide so it's easier to treat them. Should probably still make advertising 'em illegal though.)


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 23 October 2019 at 4:41 pm UTC

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm not sure I understand how a profitable gambling establishment can exist without taking advantage of its clients. It's giving them nothing and taking their money, by definition. What you're describing is the establishment of some sort of consensus of how much "taking advantage" our society considers reasonable. But as soon as you acknowledge that, it becomes clear that this is not a line that must exist at a particular place as you're trying to say, but rather that there are a constellation of social values that contribute to where we might want to put that line.

Good points, all. :)

It's an issue of responsibility: How much should the average citizen be responsible for their own foolish mistakes? Some think government should take more responsibility for these mistakes, others, less responsibility.

It is indeed important to investigate where the "line" of responsibility a group of citizens is in relation to their wants or needs, and there's no universal answer for all jurisdictions. It may be much harder to undo new laws than to create them, so lawmakers should have the patience to avoid the "Do Something!" panic that difficult issues will inevitably bring up. Better to take things slow, as it may take even more years to undo a poorly-implemented, rushed law, if it can ever be removed from the books at all.

Unfortunately, I see the global trend going against the average citizen who may want to have fewer laws to worry about, but also moving more in favour of multinational businesses. Probably another reason why governments are so reluctant to act unless they could get some sort of extra benefit for regulating (children's data, and pay checks for the people developing or maintaining the surveillance system).

Quoting: ScattershotDid you have your credit card stored in the device? This is a common mistake on Android/iOS devices given to children. If they want to purchase things then they should have to bring the device to you for you to enter your card details.

I agree with you and the answer for us was "sort of". I don't manage our Amazon account. But from what my wife told me, since it's linked to our Amazon account online, the device apparently defaulted to the default payment for my wife's Amazon Prime account, which is saved online. We've actually never purchased anything on the device before, so that's the only logical way it could have happened.

I'll have to ask her what she did exactly to lock the kids out. I think there s an option buried in the app. Otherwise, the only solution I can see is to remove the payment info from her account and I'm not sure that would work well since Prime is a subscription.

link to above post

The legally enforceable concept is also interesting. I think the "easiest" method of implementation would to place the burden on the distributor and parent, leaving the government out except for compliance checks. Essentially Steam or what have you would have a "check" to ensure the parent is approving the purchase. Something like a PIN number or 2FA styled authentication. Those mechanisms already exist, so pushing it out to all purchases wouldn't be impossible.

Essentially, who controls the payment on the account(s) is in charge. I suppose you could refine it a bit and allow the parent to set a "child" flag on the kid's profile forcing the authentication. That way it's not so heavy handed for all users.

A method like that would have the advantage of keeping the information in house, helping with privacy concerns. It would also give a good deal of control to parents, so they can have meaningful discussions with Their kids about their games.

Of course. Once a kid figured out the parent's PIN, gets a hold of their phone, our gets their own credit card, it's all over. I can't think of any system that can cover that without brining a huge number of privacy issues.

My country/society is really big on the parental override, so if it were to be implemented here instead of the UK, that would be a "must-have" component of any regulation. Is the UK the same way? Like limiting the kid, but allowing the parent to override the law with their consent and approval?


Last edited by denyasis on 23 October 2019 at 5:37 pm UTC

Quoting: denyasisOf course. Once a kid figured out the parent's PIN, gets a hold of their phone, our gets their own credit card, it's all over. I can't think of any system that can cover that without brining a huge number of privacy issues.

I think that the problem of this applications is that there ins't a defined standard that instructs them on which are the minimum payment security measures that would made them kids friendly (in other words: the application should state somewhere that it could only be used by children with the continuous supervision of an adult). By the way: I don't imply that a state is sole responsible of such regulation, streaming platforms can create and define an foundation that regulates them.

I'm not sure why the possibility of a written regulation arises so much hate against a law that is yet to be written. Regulations is what defines our currents societies, the fact that we have a law/a set of written rules that gives a standard of how to behave is something we have adopted since centuries. IMO we can have a valid discussion about _liberty_ when the new regulation is written, because it's only then when we can understand if the regulation will end up removing the liberties of others.

Quoting: namikoIt's an issue of responsibility: How much should the average citizen be responsible for their own foolish mistakes? Some think government should take more responsibility for these mistakes, others, less responsibility.

The average citizen is fine. It's the most vulnerable of us who need a hand. Survival of the fittest is not a sound social policy.