The FTC might get involved.
Senator Maggie Hassan sent a letter to ESRB president Patricia Vance, calling on the agency to curb the proliferation of loot boxes. In a separate Q&A session with FTC commissioner nominees, the senator implied that if the ESRB doesn’t take action, the government could get involved.
In the letter, as well as in the session with the FTC nominees, she praised the ESRB’s effectiveness overall. That said, she thinks that the whole loot box thing should be under the highest scrutiny.
“Recently the World Health Organization classified ‘gaming disorder‘ as a unique condition in its recent draft revision of the 11th International Classification of Diseases. While there is robust debate over whether loot boxes should be considered gambling, the fact that they are both expensive habits and use similar psychological principles suggest loot boxes should be treated with extra scrutiny. At minimum, the rating system should denote when loot boxes are utilized in physical copies of electronic games.”
As in the video below, Senator Hassan calls on the ESRB to pay a closer eye to the details of its ratings, especially those to do with loot boxes.
This is incredibly important as she’s not the only one bearing down on the situation. Hawaii has a proposed bill that would ban the sale of games with purchasable loot boxes to anyone under the age of 21, a de facto AO rating (do note how short that list is; the rating is practically death in a retail environment).
That would affect not just Star Wars Battlefront 2, but half of Blizzard’s current games, as well as Call of Duty and numerous others. The possibility that this could spread is not good; the results of federal legislation on the situation can be much greater and damaging to the hobby than the Hawaii bill.
The entire reason the ESRB was formed was to keep bureaucrats and their love of excessive documentation as well as pearl-clutching bullshit at bay.
So, once again, thanks a lot, EA!
Source: PC Gamer
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