"Lootboxes", "cases", "packs" and other chance-based systems that involve spending real money or an in-game currency that could be obtained by spending real money should be banned completely, all of those systems exploit brain vulnerabilities for profit. Also, prediction markets, sports betting, online casinos, shitcoin exchanges.
Thrill rides? Probably not, I don't think there are many people having their life ruined by their addiction to amusement parks.
Alcoholic drinks? History of bans like that suggests that it's not a good idea. However that doesn't mean that nothing can be done. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, smoking, gambling damage both the person suffering from them and the friends/loved ones around that person. It is most likely impossible to drive the harm down to 0, but it can be reduced by denormalizing casual alcohol intake and sitations where people are peer pressured into consuming alcohol to fit in (especially in young adults), etc. People addicted to those substances/behaviors need a safe environment, a society that won't prompt them to relapse over and over because everyone around them is a casual user. Those are my thoughts, but I'm no expert.
Hmm, so why do your perfectly reasonable thoughts on how to reduce alcohol abuse in light of not being able to simply ban it not apply to loot boxes as well? How is it different such that "completely banning", as you suggested, is a good idea there where it isn't for alcohol, drugs, smoking, and gambling (of which loot boxes are clearly a subcategory)?
Lootboxes are not entrenched in society yet. They are a new phenomenon that could hopefully be stopped in its tracks (but probably won't since it will impact profits)
Alcohol has been deeply embedded in human culture for thousands+ years, that's why prohibition is a bad idea. Loot boxes are a new invention, if they're deemed too harmful we can just do without them.
Watch how fast they use this to further the extent of mandatory age verification online. That's what they usually do (read: the Shock Doctrine from Naomi Klein). Problem arises, create legislation (likely reducing freedom or increasing surveillance), use said legislation down the line after everybody forgets about it to further whatever their agenda is.
Great. Now do Roblox. In the game "Steal a Brainrot" the kinds of things kids can spend money on in the game that's supposedly safe for seven-year-olds is disgusting. £29.99 for a "secret lucky block" - and that's BEFORE price discrimination. Literally wiring the brains of kids as early as possible to have a tendency/preference towards "random variance rewards." I am really pleased to see any government doing something about this and protecting kids from this disgusting, predatory, and exploitative behavior.
By all means game developers deserve to make a living... However, if they're going to operate a casino, they should be treated and licensed as such.
What are "kids"? Age of majority is all over the place, there's no hard and fast rule for when adolescents become adults, every society on the planet has a different take on it.
For example, you can get married at 16 in the UK, but can't drive until 17 (it's not a priority as we didn't build so many car-dependent hellscapes), and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent on passing strict drinking laws like the USA did.
Anyway, what I remember from the UK's Gambling Commission giving committee evidence to MPs on this topic is to ask the question: what is gambling? What activities need strict regulation, audit trails, compliance inspectors, etc? Village fête tombolas? Fundraising prize draws? Radio station cash giveaways? Top trumps? Panini sticker albums?
Lootboxes are not slot machines or FOB terminals. If they can't be "cashed out", they are more like collectible card games... which are also IMHO a plague on humanity, but not the same level of destructive activity as gambling for cash. They do need regulation, given how prevalent they are in games popular with teenagers, but need different regulation from casinos.
Games like Fortnite deserve regulation too, weaponised FOMO to keep money rolling in is sketchy.
If someone opposes regulation on X, the first line of rhetoric defense seems always to be "oh, what is 'X' even? Does it even exist? Is Y also 'X'? You don't want to ban Y, do you?"
In this case, if the focus is on the psychological mechanisms that underly gambling (varying rewards) in connection where they are used to compel people to spend vast amounts of money for nothing, I don't see how the question whether or not there could be a monetary payoff is relevant. The psychological mechanism and potential damage is the same.
> Lootboxes are not slot machines or FBO terminals. If they can't be "cashed out", they are more like collectible card games... which are also IMHO a plague on humanity, but not the same level of destructive activity as gambling for cash. They do need regulation, given how prevalent they are in games popular with teenagers, but need different regulation from casinos.
Even if they can't be cashed out officially, there are often other unofficial ways. Like selling the accounts in question.
Doesn't stop people from treating them as one, with all the corresponding issues. TBH I think a comparison with CCGs should make people question the CCG model itself, which tends to get far too easy a pass in most people's minds.
The “gambling” aspect of CCGs is mostly tacked on by outsiders, though driven by decisions of the manufacturer.
That said, when you have a deck of, say, Pokémon cards in your hand, there’s nothing about it that encourages a gambler’s mindset.
My 8yo has a bunch of Pokémon cards and he just likes playing with them, he has no idea of any monetary value they might have. There’s nothing about the physical product or game itself that betrays that.
It’s the culture created around it that’s poisonous.
Absolutely, I don't think CCGs are innocent. But I do think they're a level of indirection away from straight-up gambling. Being sold a pig in a poke is not the same thing as being offered betting odds.
Buying Pokemon cards in the hope of getting a specific rare one is a pretty niche form of addiction. Compared to walking into a shop, putting in £100 and getting nothing back, then another £100, then another, in the hope of getting £500... it's a lot more accessible, and can easily wipe out your life savings.
Perhaps it's like arguing "which is more lethal, a gun or a screwdriver?", and you're arguing on a technicality that if you're really persistent then they're equally lethal as you can get the job done with a screwdriver, but you're overlooking how much easier the gun makes it.
Isn't this Fixed odds betting terminal how most slots work in North America as well? I'm aware of a few places where it isn't required. But the reality is if your RTP is something like 10%, not many people are coming by that often
Yes, it does. Only Sith deal in absolutes. You can say the same about, let's say alcohol. For most it's an entertaining social lubricant. For a much smaller number, it leads them to wreck and ruin. Is it therefore a wicked evil sin that no God-fearing person should engage in, and I'm going to ban it to protect the morality of society?
The USA tried that out with Prohibition, and only after years of misery and gangsters taking up power did they realise their mistake. Moral absolutism doesn't work, problem management does.
Per the Gambling Commission in their call for evidence from a few years ago:
> Gambling is a popular leisure pursuit in Britain. Last year, 47% of adults surveyed had taken part in at least one form of gambling in the previous four weeks [...] Gambling can be entertaining and sociable, and enhance enjoyment of other activities, and the vast majority of gamblers take part without suffering even low levels of harm. [...]
> However, gambling does come with risks, and problem gambling can ruin lives, wreck families, and damage communities [...] approximately 0.5% of the adult population are problem gamblers [...] this rate has remained broadly steady around or below 1% for the past 20 years and now equates to about 300,000 individuals whose gambling is also likely to cause harm to those around them
> This Review seeks to ensure that people can continue to gamble but that the legislation and regulation we have in place addresses as many factors as possible to give the necessary safeguards [...]
Evidence tells you plainly that different forms of gambling are not equal, and don't have the same power to trigger problem gambling in individuals. Coin pushers at seaside amusement parks with a maximum "bet" of 10p are not in the same league as fixed-odds roulette in a run-down high street with a £100 maximum bet. Lootboxes have some level of risk of causing harm, but not that level of risk.
> and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent on passing strict drinking laws like the USA did.
16 if you're buying wine or beer with a meal, at least in Scotland. This means that when you go to your mate's mum's pub for a pub lunch on a Friday you need to watch out for your teachers also going for a lunchtime pint.
Age of majority is a whole mess. For example, the UK is busy reducing the voting age to 16 (from 18) for the next election, but simultaneously they are requiring online age verification to restrict much of the internet to 18+...
If you're forbidding people from doing things they could do yesterday, it's best to be a little conservative with your scope.
16-yo kids might do some amount of part time work, and should at least have enough of a concept of money to understand why pressing the "more loot boxes" button is a Bad Idea. They're also old enough that they might potentially have their own bank account and their own card, which then caps the damages to their allowance.
That would require extra work to pass more legislation which has a chance to fail. I think it's better to do it all once instead of having to revisit the issue every couple years.
So much that could be done with those. Mandating age checks. Covering at least 80% of them with warnings about gambling. Maybe plain packaging and only allowing them from behind counter or unmarked automated systems. Treat them as tobacco products.
You can just ban them. Pass a law that says if someone buys an item the identity of which is undisclosed, and they're not happy with it, they're entitled to a full refund.
Pokémon can probably have it's immense (and insane) secondary market attributed to its gambling-esque qualities. It'd be perfectly fine if people could play with decks they chose and cards were sold at a uniform price, provided the game itself is balanced - which is to say gambling elements in these things are probably by design.
I feel like labeling is probably the best approach here. While I personally hate the business model of "Gatcha" type games and wouldn't mind if we banned lot boxes, it is a model does seem to work for a lot of people.
I also think the odds should also be not only disclosed, but made prominent
From ガチャ; the "t" is not really there in the Japanese pronunciation, although it is used for transliteration of English words with T like チケット (chiketto, from ticket)
Because in real life the store clerk won't let a child spend $1000 on their parents card making purchases again and again and again and again and again, but a video game will let a child do it in less than an hour and consider that a success and try to understand how to stimulate another child to do so.
Differ all you want. No child will bankrupt a family at a trading card game store. These are physical goods paid in bulk with provisioning and there are laws for returning them.
Another point of contention is the randomness of packs. The way you play is: You save up to buy the entire set of boosters and already get almost all cards you need for competitive or fun play. The rest you need to trade for or buy individually. It is much more of a social interaction than gambling. The value you get from saving up and trading is easily 10x what you get from opening boosters.
That's why you will never see a bunch of kids queued up in front of a counter frothing from the mouth saying "just... one more!"
Allowing trading is a big part of it. Most online games never allow trading the things bought with real money, they get tied to your account. I guess as a way to prevent CC fraud but it still contributes to the issue.
It's a double-edged sword. For the seller, the ideal would be getting people just as addicted but not allowing trading, since that increases the average spend required to get a specific desired pull substantially.
Trading wouldn't work due to online game deflation. They have to set you up in order to retain you. When you open a new account, or are a "returning player" you get a bunch of free/easy to get stuff that took someone else a decade to collect.
But that is still a strange argument, because IF the argument is that loot boxes are so dangerous and addictive, why can, say, a 19 years old do it but a 18 years old can not? That makes no logical sense. One year is a magical difference suddenly?
This is a bit of a silly argument, given all the precedent in real life for this sort of thing.
Can a 16 year old magically drive a car properly, but a 15 year old can't? Is an 18 year old magically much more capable doing their electoral civic duty than a 17 year old? Is a 21 year old magically able to consume alcohol responsibly, but a 20 year old isn't?
(Or whatever age cutoffs are appropriate for your jurisdiction.)
We define these cutoffs not because they are magical or apply equally to everyone, but because we have to draw the line somewhere, in cases where we aren't going to do a blanket all-ages ban. Sometimes the cutoff is chosen poorly, certainly, but that's a problem with the implementation, not the idea itself.
Not just that, but this assumes that the average 18 years old has the same mental capacity as the others more or less. Bell curves clearly show the opposite
Pokemon cards have gone full circle, GameStop now has an online service where you can gamble on cards digitally just like lootboxes. You buy a roll at different price points to win a PSA graded card from a set of probabilities, and then you can sell it back for 90% market value to GameStop or have them ship it to you.
The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I didn't think would've been possible a few years ago.
Woah, you can sell it back to them? That’s normally the line that isn’t crossed. You sell it at the store next door (pachinko) or on the open market (trading card games and digital items).
> The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I didn't think would've been possible a few years ago.
I grew up in Italy when sport betting was illegal and you had to do it through illegal channels, and I did it now and then like everyone else, and thought we should totally make it legal.
At some point all betting, slot machines etc.. became legal and it's been a disaster and I'm also totally radicalized against it.
Resale value protects The Pokémon Company. Your child spent all your money on Pokémon cards? Resell the cards. You've just realized your 15 years long obsession has broken your life? Resell the cards.
Aggrieved parties can partly get restoration. That way there never is enough political momentum to legiferate them. Try to resell your Fortnite account and they close it.
Reselling never recovers all costs, for most people. I know that because I sold many of my old magic cards when I stopped playing magic (due to lack of time). I recovered about 20% of my expenses at most.
Pokemon cards are addictive and fun but they're kind of analogue. Loot boxes are more like slot machines - they have flashing lights, animations and jingles to hook you in deeper. And because the lootboxes are in game they can be tuned in frequency and payout just right to keep you playing in a way boring cards could never be (beyond just boring probabilities)
Those are gambling too, and were criticize as such not just now but also when they were new (but people ignored that criticism because pokemon was hype and adults complaining about trendy things are always uncool and ignored.)
There’s something to be said about the visibility of gambling as a signal to people that someone may have a problem. Gambling on your phone just looks like being on your phone. It even improves access to the addiction. Needing to go to a casino looks a lot different, provides some friction, and could spur intervention. The same could be said about loot boxes vs buying Pokemon cards in a store.
Pokemon cards have utility within the game of pokemon. They additionally have value in secondary market places which is not strictly tied to the rarity of the item. These markets are not required to exist for the game to function.
Lootboxes, especially for competitive games, do not have any utility within the game and are often cosmetic. Their value is strictly tied to the rarity of the item which the vendor fully artificially controls. Absent the secondary markets the cases would not be purchased and the items ignored.
So you have a choice. You can make pay to win items and publish the probabilities of actually winning them. Or you can have items that can't be traded. Otherwise you're trending very close to widely known regulated activity like gambling.
Pokemon cards can get destroyed or may never enter the market for all the typical reasons or may not be particularly valuable even though they are rare. They don't have nearly as direct a control over the price.
Obviously you need to require enough friction that the experiences are comparable (e.g. no letting someone impulse buy 100 times in half a second without having to re-type their "I am an adult" payment info or something analogous, possibly just a hard ceiling for everyone), but I don't think you can ban everything that touches the same sharp edge, and you can't mandate that parents teach their kids how to handle it.
So I think the best you can do is put hard limits on people's ability to hurt themselves without at least an "are you really sure" check, and maybe something like not allowing cash in the exchange without adult verification so the kids might, at worst, gamble their FunBux they earned playing a game and get burned on having lost a lot of FunBux, rather than their or their parents' cash. (This doesn't stop parents from giving their kids their credit card, but that's not really a problem you can solve...)
Because neither loot boxes nor Pokémon cards are actually that addicting. There is no strong link to actual gambling and these mechanics. The reason loot boxes get regulated at all is because people simply don’t like them, and they scream the loudest for someone to fix it. Very bad precedent.
Loot Boxes are like Pokemon cards, you buy a pack, don't know what you're going to get, and then you can trade or sell them. Banning this is just preventing kids from developing a proper risk/reward instinct later in life.
Yeah we should just let 8 year olds into casinos to help them develop their risk reward instinct.
Also, the risk reward instinct doesn't work as well when you're gambling moeny someone else earned.
It’s not for technology to replace parents in their responsibilities to teach their kids how to cope with stuff of life.
Age ratings are an aid but still require passing good habits and developing your child’s ability to think and solve this for themselves. So not letting your kids get addicted to in-app purchases sounds like good parenting. Keeping your kids away from tablets and smartphones until they’re 16 is even better parenting.
Which, frankly, is fine. Regulations like this are great to help guide parents, but ultimately it is the parent's responsibility to decide what is fine and not fine for their child. I wouldn't agree with a parent that gets their kid into loot boxes, but that's their choice.
And if a parent is blindly skipping an age verification screen for their kid without figuring out why that age verification is there in the first place, then they're a bad parent. You can't really fix that, unfortunately, outside of extreme cases.
It’s in the companies interest to make the age verification screen as annoying as companies make cookie pop ups - to just get the parents to click “yes whatever” all the time.
I don't think I have ever paid attention to a single age rating in my entire life. Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn't let kids play most video games anyways?
Very spiritually European move.
What regulators should do is focus on easily applicable percentage-based fines. Make sure it's not just another line item.
It's my understanding that lots of parents use these numbers as guidance. I will make my own decisions about what my child can play, but the ratings and all the labels makes it much much easier to make an informed decision.
For the parents that are not into gaming, being able to just go by these numbers is much better than having no such guidance.
> Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn't let kids play most video games anyways?
Yes. In fact I believe they help breaking down the fundamentalism by making it so clear that gaming is not inherently bad or good for your child. It all depends on the content.
Having age ratings is useful so I dont have to play a game to know its age suitability. Its common for very young children to play games, and age ratings help parents
make informed responsible decisions. There are some dark addictive patterns being used in gaming such as changing the odds of reward to optimise engagement (and make money) - these patterns need an age rating. Additionally, I think age ratings encourage developers to avoid content which would increase the age rating, since they then target a wider audience.
This is not a regulators move. This is the industry slightly adjusting their recommendations to parents.
Will this change anything? Maybe it will help the industry avoid being targeted by actual regulation.
I guess it's not gambling, or it'd be covered by the UKs existing laws around gambling that set the minimum age to 18.
edit: I'm pointing out the UK has apparently decided lootboxes are not gambling, because if they did classify it as gambling it'd be covered by existing gambling laws that restrict it to 18+.
Not that I personally hold that opinion, though I can see how I could have phrased my original message better.
It's a stupid decision by the government, they should be 18+ and recognised for being gambling.
> I'm pointing out the UK has apparently decided lootboxes are not gambling
Wow, considering how the UK has been going full Taliban on everything why stop at lootboxes? Guess the politicians are getting some money/bribes from the lootbox companies.
I do understand the rationale; and I have known kids who
were addicted to gaming. So I don't disagree that this
kind of addiction-mechanism in games, is somewhat similar
to e. g. casino gambling where some people get hooked up
and may be unable to exit that addiction, leading to
massive loss. People are different - some are very easy
to addict. Others have strategies against that. My simple
strategy was to never start gambling - and never pay for
playing a game (aside from the initial purchase, but the
last game I bought was in the 1990s; back then games were
IMO better too, ignoring the graphics).
Having said that, though, when I also combine this news
with the attempt to force operating systems into sniffing
for my age at all times, I am still totally against this.
This kind of over-eager bureaucracy is not good. It reminds
me of attempts to prohibit alcohol. Yes, it is not the same,
a loot box does not cause physical symptoms really, compared
to alcohol or, say, harder drugs - but states seem too eager
to want to restrict people. Or monitor them, such as in the
case of "age verification". So now this legislation is another
basis to support mandatory age sniffing of everyone. So I am
completely against it now.
How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
I have kids and as a parent I use these ratings as a very loose guide combined with my own experience and understanding of the game in question. Other parents ignore them completely.
I agree more could be done to directly affect the companies, and there have been a lot of legal cases surrounding loot boxes aimed at children.
But this is a good complement to that. It makes it easier for parents to get aware of the issue.
> How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
For instance, by being used in further legislation to mandate age verification on all operating systems. Lo and behold, that is already happening - see California.
One can not view a single law and assume it is isolated, when in reality this is a move by lobbyists to further restrict people and sniff after them (see MidnightBSD giving in and adding a daemon that sniffs for user data; I am 100% certain systemd on Linux will follow suit, via a new systemd-sniffy daemon). Some companies pay good money for such legislation. So the answer to your question is very simple, actually. You just should not view it as an isolated way while ignoring everything else - lobbyists are sneaky. It reminds me of Google claiming it has no problem with ad-blockers, then they went on to destroy ublock origin (https://ublockorigin.com/).
I'm skeptical because this is not a new system part of those lobbyist agendas. This is a recommendation system which has been in effect for over 20 years. And this is a tweak to how they update recommendations.
> How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
They've already enacted mandatory age-verification-via-ID to use apps/features.
It seems they're gonna put as many "gates/fences" at every N age years to make sure they can surveil as many people in distinct age brackets as possible.
Up next: Be of at least N years to watch cartoons with animated violence?
Adjusting an age-ratings system doesn't take liberty away from anyone. Parents can still allow their kids to play whatever games the parent deems is ok.
I agree with some of your other points, though: we should have legally mandated return periods for this sort of thing. Not sure how you'd enshrine price limits into law, though; that seems impractical.
Regulating gambling is not "nanny state", esp in relation to kids. Your personal experience as a kid, about whether you had money or not, is completely irrelevant as an argument.
Not at all. My experience in this case indicates that there is a correct behavioural pattern which avoids the issue entirely and requires zero government's intervention.
But if you insist on having a regulation, okay, I'm fine with it. What about the following regulation: each time a minor is found gambling or smoking, his/her parents are fined 100x times the stake/the price of cigarettes?
Loot boxes are an in-game feature allowing players to buy random mystery items with real or virtual currency
That's not how I use the term. I think of a loot box as a treasure chest or similar that you discover while exploring which, when opened, gives you some loot!
On the other hand if you're talking about a package with a random assortment of stuff in it that you buy without knowing what's inside, I call that a "grab bag" or "mystery bundle".
Am I too old? What games were primarily responsible for changing the vocabulary?
The term "loot box" has, since I want to say the early 2010s, referred to the mechanic described in the quote. It's hard for me to say what the earliest games were to create this mechanic, especially since its origin seems not to be in the traditional Western games but in East Asian games.
The model is very strongly associated with the rise of "live service" gaming, with Overwatch and Battlefield being some of the more notorious offenders.
It’s an expression. You don’t really win them by “exploring”, but by “playing the game”. You end a match? Lootbox. You played 3 days in a row! Lootbox. You opened the options screen? Lootbox.
They usually have a very involved opening animation with music and sounds specifically designed to maximize the feeling of anticipation. Once you see it it feels completely different from what you are describing, because it’s so obviously trying to maximize the gambling aspect of it. It’s like confusing genuine love with prostitution.
I started seeing this term come up everywhere when Overwatch first released. The common usage is much closer to mystery bundles as you describe, and regulators tend to be upset about them when real money gets involved. It feels an awful lot like gambling at that point.
"Lootboxes", "cases", "packs" and other chance-based systems that involve spending real money or an in-game currency that could be obtained by spending real money should be banned completely, all of those systems exploit brain vulnerabilities for profit. Also, prediction markets, sports betting, online casinos, shitcoin exchanges.
Brain vulnerabilities? So ban alcoholic drinks and thrill rides too?
Thrill rides? Probably not, I don't think there are many people having their life ruined by their addiction to amusement parks.
Alcoholic drinks? History of bans like that suggests that it's not a good idea. However that doesn't mean that nothing can be done. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, smoking, gambling damage both the person suffering from them and the friends/loved ones around that person. It is most likely impossible to drive the harm down to 0, but it can be reduced by denormalizing casual alcohol intake and sitations where people are peer pressured into consuming alcohol to fit in (especially in young adults), etc. People addicted to those substances/behaviors need a safe environment, a society that won't prompt them to relapse over and over because everyone around them is a casual user. Those are my thoughts, but I'm no expert.
Hmm, so why do your perfectly reasonable thoughts on how to reduce alcohol abuse in light of not being able to simply ban it not apply to loot boxes as well? How is it different such that "completely banning", as you suggested, is a good idea there where it isn't for alcohol, drugs, smoking, and gambling (of which loot boxes are clearly a subcategory)?
Lootboxes are not entrenched in society yet. They are a new phenomenon that could hopefully be stopped in its tracks (but probably won't since it will impact profits)
Alcohol has been deeply embedded in human culture for thousands+ years, that's why prohibition is a bad idea. Loot boxes are a new invention, if they're deemed too harmful we can just do without them.
Yes please ban alcohol/make it hard to get.
Apples and oranges right there
Watch how fast they use this to further the extent of mandatory age verification online. That's what they usually do (read: the Shock Doctrine from Naomi Klein). Problem arises, create legislation (likely reducing freedom or increasing surveillance), use said legislation down the line after everybody forgets about it to further whatever their agenda is.
That's mild. I'd ban them outright.
Great. Now do Roblox. In the game "Steal a Brainrot" the kinds of things kids can spend money on in the game that's supposedly safe for seven-year-olds is disgusting. £29.99 for a "secret lucky block" - and that's BEFORE price discrimination. Literally wiring the brains of kids as early as possible to have a tendency/preference towards "random variance rewards." I am really pleased to see any government doing something about this and protecting kids from this disgusting, predatory, and exploitative behavior.
By all means game developers deserve to make a living... However, if they're going to operate a casino, they should be treated and licensed as such.
Do they let 16 year olds gamble in casinos in Europe? Odd to ban it for kids but only some kids.
What are "kids"? Age of majority is all over the place, there's no hard and fast rule for when adolescents become adults, every society on the planet has a different take on it.
For example, you can get married at 16 in the UK, but can't drive until 17 (it's not a priority as we didn't build so many car-dependent hellscapes), and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent on passing strict drinking laws like the USA did.
Anyway, what I remember from the UK's Gambling Commission giving committee evidence to MPs on this topic is to ask the question: what is gambling? What activities need strict regulation, audit trails, compliance inspectors, etc? Village fête tombolas? Fundraising prize draws? Radio station cash giveaways? Top trumps? Panini sticker albums?
Lootboxes are not slot machines or FOB terminals. If they can't be "cashed out", they are more like collectible card games... which are also IMHO a plague on humanity, but not the same level of destructive activity as gambling for cash. They do need regulation, given how prevalent they are in games popular with teenagers, but need different regulation from casinos.
Games like Fortnite deserve regulation too, weaponised FOMO to keep money rolling in is sketchy.
If someone opposes regulation on X, the first line of rhetoric defense seems always to be "oh, what is 'X' even? Does it even exist? Is Y also 'X'? You don't want to ban Y, do you?"
In this case, if the focus is on the psychological mechanisms that underly gambling (varying rewards) in connection where they are used to compel people to spend vast amounts of money for nothing, I don't see how the question whether or not there could be a monetary payoff is relevant. The psychological mechanism and potential damage is the same.
> Lootboxes are not slot machines or FBO terminals. If they can't be "cashed out", they are more like collectible card games... which are also IMHO a plague on humanity, but not the same level of destructive activity as gambling for cash. They do need regulation, given how prevalent they are in games popular with teenagers, but need different regulation from casinos.
Even if they can't be cashed out officially, there are often other unofficial ways. Like selling the accounts in question.
Needing a secondary market to cash out is not the same as the vendor providing both the game of chance and the winnings.
You can sell/trade MTG and Pokemon cards, but that doesn't make them "casinos"
Doesn't stop people from treating them as one, with all the corresponding issues. TBH I think a comparison with CCGs should make people question the CCG model itself, which tends to get far too easy a pass in most people's minds.
The “gambling” aspect of CCGs is mostly tacked on by outsiders, though driven by decisions of the manufacturer.
That said, when you have a deck of, say, Pokémon cards in your hand, there’s nothing about it that encourages a gambler’s mindset.
My 8yo has a bunch of Pokémon cards and he just likes playing with them, he has no idea of any monetary value they might have. There’s nothing about the physical product or game itself that betrays that.
It’s the culture created around it that’s poisonous.
Absolutely, I don't think CCGs are innocent. But I do think they're a level of indirection away from straight-up gambling. Being sold a pig in a poke is not the same thing as being offered betting odds.
> but not the same level of destructive activity as gambling for cash
... are you sure?
Yes, I am very sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_odds_betting_terminal
Buying Pokemon cards in the hope of getting a specific rare one is a pretty niche form of addiction. Compared to walking into a shop, putting in £100 and getting nothing back, then another £100, then another, in the hope of getting £500... it's a lot more accessible, and can easily wipe out your life savings.
Perhaps it's like arguing "which is more lethal, a gun or a screwdriver?", and you're arguing on a technicality that if you're really persistent then they're equally lethal as you can get the job done with a screwdriver, but you're overlooking how much easier the gun makes it.
Isn't this Fixed odds betting terminal how most slots work in North America as well? I'm aware of a few places where it isn't required. But the reality is if your RTP is something like 10%, not many people are coming by that often
And having a smaller addiction rate makes it any more moral?
Yes, it does. Only Sith deal in absolutes. You can say the same about, let's say alcohol. For most it's an entertaining social lubricant. For a much smaller number, it leads them to wreck and ruin. Is it therefore a wicked evil sin that no God-fearing person should engage in, and I'm going to ban it to protect the morality of society?
The USA tried that out with Prohibition, and only after years of misery and gangsters taking up power did they realise their mistake. Moral absolutism doesn't work, problem management does.
Per the Gambling Commission in their call for evidence from a few years ago:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-the-gam...
> Gambling is a popular leisure pursuit in Britain. Last year, 47% of adults surveyed had taken part in at least one form of gambling in the previous four weeks [...] Gambling can be entertaining and sociable, and enhance enjoyment of other activities, and the vast majority of gamblers take part without suffering even low levels of harm. [...]
> However, gambling does come with risks, and problem gambling can ruin lives, wreck families, and damage communities [...] approximately 0.5% of the adult population are problem gamblers [...] this rate has remained broadly steady around or below 1% for the past 20 years and now equates to about 300,000 individuals whose gambling is also likely to cause harm to those around them
> This Review seeks to ensure that people can continue to gamble but that the legislation and regulation we have in place addresses as many factors as possible to give the necessary safeguards [...]
Evidence tells you plainly that different forms of gambling are not equal, and don't have the same power to trigger problem gambling in individuals. Coin pushers at seaside amusement parks with a maximum "bet" of 10p are not in the same league as fixed-odds roulette in a run-down high street with a £100 maximum bet. Lootboxes have some level of risk of causing harm, but not that level of risk.
> and you can buy alcohol at 18 or be given it with a meal by your parents at younger ages, because we didn't have puritans making motorway funding contingent on passing strict drinking laws like the USA did.
16 if you're buying wine or beer with a meal, at least in Scotland. This means that when you go to your mate's mum's pub for a pub lunch on a Friday you need to watch out for your teachers also going for a lunchtime pint.
Man, the 80s were wild.
Age of majority is a whole mess. For example, the UK is busy reducing the voting age to 16 (from 18) for the next election, but simultaneously they are requiring online age verification to restrict much of the internet to 18+...
If you're forbidding people from doing things they could do yesterday, it's best to be a little conservative with your scope.
16-yo kids might do some amount of part time work, and should at least have enough of a concept of money to understand why pressing the "more loot boxes" button is a Bad Idea. They're also old enough that they might potentially have their own bank account and their own card, which then caps the damages to their allowance.
That would require extra work to pass more legislation which has a chance to fail. I think it's better to do it all once instead of having to revisit the issue every couple years.
So what's the issue then? The minimum is 16 - or are you proposing kids 15 and younger have the right to gamble?
It’s not like if it fails, you’re forbidden from trying again, yeah? Or am I incorrect on this? Not European.
You can buy trading cards in lots of stores. Pokémon, soccer and so on. It's hard to draw a line without banning those as well.
So much that could be done with those. Mandating age checks. Covering at least 80% of them with warnings about gambling. Maybe plain packaging and only allowing them from behind counter or unmarked automated systems. Treat them as tobacco products.
OK, we mandate age checks. But what is the minimum age? Am I in trouble if I make a straw purchase of that product for someone else?
You can just ban them. Pass a law that says if someone buys an item the identity of which is undisclosed, and they're not happy with it, they're entitled to a full refund.
[delayed]
Pokémon can probably have it's immense (and insane) secondary market attributed to its gambling-esque qualities. It'd be perfectly fine if people could play with decks they chose and cards were sold at a uniform price, provided the game itself is balanced - which is to say gambling elements in these things are probably by design.
You can still buy mystery boxes etc in brick and mortar stores. Most of these are targeted at <= 10 yo
I strongly believe that this is mostly performative, honestly
Pretty much all of Europe is 18-21.
I wish they'd add mandatory labeling. I'm over 16 and have no interest in games with loot boxes.
I feel like labeling is probably the best approach here. While I personally hate the business model of "Gatcha" type games and wouldn't mind if we banned lot boxes, it is a model does seem to work for a lot of people.
I also think the odds should also be not only disclosed, but made prominent
> "Gatcha" type games
Typically spelled "gacha", although I have to admit that "gotcha" seems apt.
From ガチャ; the "t" is not really there in the Japanese pronunciation, although it is used for transliteration of English words with T like チケット (chiketto, from ticket)
I never understood why video game lootboxes get regulated while real-life lootboxes like pokemon cards don't.
Because in real life the store clerk won't let a child spend $1000 on their parents card making purchases again and again and again and again and again, but a video game will let a child do it in less than an hour and consider that a success and try to understand how to stimulate another child to do so.
With the rise of online storefronts and employees who just don't care I beg to differ.
Differ all you want. No child will bankrupt a family at a trading card game store. These are physical goods paid in bulk with provisioning and there are laws for returning them.
Another point of contention is the randomness of packs. The way you play is: You save up to buy the entire set of boosters and already get almost all cards you need for competitive or fun play. The rest you need to trade for or buy individually. It is much more of a social interaction than gambling. The value you get from saving up and trading is easily 10x what you get from opening boosters.
That's why you will never see a bunch of kids queued up in front of a counter frothing from the mouth saying "just... one more!"
Allowing trading is a big part of it. Most online games never allow trading the things bought with real money, they get tied to your account. I guess as a way to prevent CC fraud but it still contributes to the issue.
It's a double-edged sword. For the seller, the ideal would be getting people just as addicted but not allowing trading, since that increases the average spend required to get a specific desired pull substantially.
Just to be clear, the biggest problems are associated with games that allow trading.
Trading wouldn't work due to online game deflation. They have to set you up in order to retain you. When you open a new account, or are a "returning player" you get a bunch of free/easy to get stuff that took someone else a decade to collect.
>No child will bankrupt a family at a trading card game store.
Let the child use a separate debit card? Bank cards are personal and work as an authentication factor.
> Let the child use a separate debit card?
I remember that cartoon. Was it Richie Rich?
A kid can’t clean out the Pokemon vending machines just the same. I’m in favor of not letting kids gamble but wish it was applied across the board.
But that is still a strange argument, because IF the argument is that loot boxes are so dangerous and addictive, why can, say, a 19 years old do it but a 18 years old can not? That makes no logical sense. One year is a magical difference suddenly?
This is a bit of a silly argument, given all the precedent in real life for this sort of thing.
Can a 16 year old magically drive a car properly, but a 15 year old can't? Is an 18 year old magically much more capable doing their electoral civic duty than a 17 year old? Is a 21 year old magically able to consume alcohol responsibly, but a 20 year old isn't?
(Or whatever age cutoffs are appropriate for your jurisdiction.)
We define these cutoffs not because they are magical or apply equally to everyone, but because we have to draw the line somewhere, in cases where we aren't going to do a blanket all-ages ban. Sometimes the cutoff is chosen poorly, certainly, but that's a problem with the implementation, not the idea itself.
Because you have to draw a line somewhere, if you want a line.
This same reasoning applies to sex consent, voting, driving, working.
We want to say "only qualified people can do x" but it's impossible to encode this in regulations and it always boils down to the sorites paradox.
So as a culture we have defaulted to "age is a good a proxy for being qualified".
Not just that, but this assumes that the average 18 years old has the same mental capacity as the others more or less. Bell curves clearly show the opposite
Clearly they do and many people can safely do things that are illegal and many people should be prevented from doing things that are legal.
However, we can't set up a force of psychoanalysts to assess every member of society and run chmod on them, so we go with a compromise.
Pokemon cards have gone full circle, GameStop now has an online service where you can gamble on cards digitally just like lootboxes. You buy a roll at different price points to win a PSA graded card from a set of probabilities, and then you can sell it back for 90% market value to GameStop or have them ship it to you.
The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I didn't think would've been possible a few years ago.
Woah, you can sell it back to them? That’s normally the line that isn’t crossed. You sell it at the store next door (pachinko) or on the open market (trading card games and digital items).
> The proliferation of gambling over so many domains has radicalized me against it in a way that I didn't think would've been possible a few years ago.
I grew up in Italy when sport betting was illegal and you had to do it through illegal channels, and I did it now and then like everyone else, and thought we should totally make it legal.
At some point all betting, slot machines etc.. became legal and it's been a disaster and I'm also totally radicalized against it.
The best solution is through education. For example by showing in big letters the return-to-player ratio:
On 100 EUR you will get → 79 back, if you put them again in the machine you will get → 62.41 → 49.30 → 38.95 → 30.77…
Resale value protects The Pokémon Company. Your child spent all your money on Pokémon cards? Resell the cards. You've just realized your 15 years long obsession has broken your life? Resell the cards.
Aggrieved parties can partly get restoration. That way there never is enough political momentum to legiferate them. Try to resell your Fortnite account and they close it.
Reselling never recovers all costs, for most people. I know that because I sold many of my old magic cards when I stopped playing magic (due to lack of time). I recovered about 20% of my expenses at most.
Pokemon cards are addictive and fun but they're kind of analogue. Loot boxes are more like slot machines - they have flashing lights, animations and jingles to hook you in deeper. And because the lootboxes are in game they can be tuned in frequency and payout just right to keep you playing in a way boring cards could never be (beyond just boring probabilities)
Idk about pokemon cards, but I'm sure the wotc guys use something to make sniffing newly opened packs addicting.
That’s funny. I don’t think I’ve opened a pack of Magic cards in about 25 years and I can still remember the smell.
It's a good smell. My kids are opening packs and I can totally recall the sensation of opening mtg cards in the 90s.
Those are gambling too, and were criticize as such not just now but also when they were new (but people ignored that criticism because pokemon was hype and adults complaining about trendy things are always uncool and ignored.)
There’s something to be said about the visibility of gambling as a signal to people that someone may have a problem. Gambling on your phone just looks like being on your phone. It even improves access to the addiction. Needing to go to a casino looks a lot different, provides some friction, and could spur intervention. The same could be said about loot boxes vs buying Pokemon cards in a store.
I will say card packs are somewhat useful for drafting formats where you need a sealed pack of random unknown cards.
Just ripping packs hurts my soul. What a waste.
The single layer of abstraction.
Pokemon cards have utility within the game of pokemon. They additionally have value in secondary market places which is not strictly tied to the rarity of the item. These markets are not required to exist for the game to function.
Lootboxes, especially for competitive games, do not have any utility within the game and are often cosmetic. Their value is strictly tied to the rarity of the item which the vendor fully artificially controls. Absent the secondary markets the cases would not be purchased and the items ignored.
So you have a choice. You can make pay to win items and publish the probabilities of actually winning them. Or you can have items that can't be traded. Otherwise you're trending very close to widely known regulated activity like gambling.
Rarity of Pokemon cards is also fully controlled by the vendor, and it's of course very intentional.
Pokemon cards can get destroyed or may never enter the market for all the typical reasons or may not be particularly valuable even though they are rare. They don't have nearly as direct a control over the price.
Tradeability. In real life you can just buy the card. That sets a hard upper limit to the losses.
Whereas gacha games and lootboxes are notorious for unpublished, ridiculously bad odds for "desirable" things with no way to outright purchase them.
When you buy a pokemon card at least you get a card
This is the same argument Valve is presenting.
Given their track record with Artifact, I don't think we should listen to them on the topic.
(Opinions my own, naturally.)
I think they're right, really.
Obviously you need to require enough friction that the experiences are comparable (e.g. no letting someone impulse buy 100 times in half a second without having to re-type their "I am an adult" payment info or something analogous, possibly just a hard ceiling for everyone), but I don't think you can ban everything that touches the same sharp edge, and you can't mandate that parents teach their kids how to handle it.
So I think the best you can do is put hard limits on people's ability to hurt themselves without at least an "are you really sure" check, and maybe something like not allowing cash in the exchange without adult verification so the kids might, at worst, gamble their FunBux they earned playing a game and get burned on having lost a lot of FunBux, rather than their or their parents' cash. (This doesn't stop parents from giving their kids their credit card, but that's not really a problem you can solve...)
>I don't think you can ban everything that touches the same sharp edge
Why not, though? Is this a general stance against banning anything, or do you think loot boxes, video games and/or kids are different?
Physicality. You don’t even own digital games, let alone cosmetics for your digital game license.
Because neither loot boxes nor Pokémon cards are actually that addicting. There is no strong link to actual gambling and these mechanics. The reason loot boxes get regulated at all is because people simply don’t like them, and they scream the loudest for someone to fix it. Very bad precedent.
should probably just ban gambling for children but seems like a good first step.
Loot Boxes are like Pokemon cards, you buy a pack, don't know what you're going to get, and then you can trade or sell them. Banning this is just preventing kids from developing a proper risk/reward instinct later in life.
Yeah we should just let 8 year olds into casinos to help them develop their risk reward instinct. Also, the risk reward instinct doesn't work as well when you're gambling moeny someone else earned.
You can not trade or sell the contents of lootboxes.
In steam marketplace one can. They are going to court with New York City right now over this. [1]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_waOkwIpWxg [video][18m]
Vast majority of those games don't allow trading or selling the things you got from lootboxes.
And "learning" about gambling doesn't need to happen at 8 years old. What a fucking delusional view
I think this is good, but also it will change things very little (parents will skip the age verification screen).
It’s not for technology to replace parents in their responsibilities to teach their kids how to cope with stuff of life.
Age ratings are an aid but still require passing good habits and developing your child’s ability to think and solve this for themselves. So not letting your kids get addicted to in-app purchases sounds like good parenting. Keeping your kids away from tablets and smartphones until they’re 16 is even better parenting.
Which, frankly, is fine. Regulations like this are great to help guide parents, but ultimately it is the parent's responsibility to decide what is fine and not fine for their child. I wouldn't agree with a parent that gets their kid into loot boxes, but that's their choice.
And if a parent is blindly skipping an age verification screen for their kid without figuring out why that age verification is there in the first place, then they're a bad parent. You can't really fix that, unfortunately, outside of extreme cases.
It’s in the companies interest to make the age verification screen as annoying as companies make cookie pop ups - to just get the parents to click “yes whatever” all the time.
Okay? How will this actually change anything?
I don't think I have ever paid attention to a single age rating in my entire life. Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn't let kids play most video games anyways?
Very spiritually European move.
What regulators should do is focus on easily applicable percentage-based fines. Make sure it's not just another line item.
> Okay? How will this actually change anything?
It's my understanding that lots of parents use these numbers as guidance. I will make my own decisions about what my child can play, but the ratings and all the labels makes it much much easier to make an informed decision.
For the parents that are not into gaming, being able to just go by these numbers is much better than having no such guidance.
> Does anyone do outside of fundamentalist parents who wouldn't let kids play most video games anyways?
Yes. In fact I believe they help breaking down the fundamentalism by making it so clear that gaming is not inherently bad or good for your child. It all depends on the content.
> I don't think I have ever paid attention to a single age rating in my entire life.
You mean when you've selected games for yourself to play? That's... fine.
If you mean when you've selected (or allowed) games for your kids to play, that's... pretty irresponsible.
Having age ratings is useful so I dont have to play a game to know its age suitability. Its common for very young children to play games, and age ratings help parents make informed responsible decisions. There are some dark addictive patterns being used in gaming such as changing the odds of reward to optimise engagement (and make money) - these patterns need an age rating. Additionally, I think age ratings encourage developers to avoid content which would increase the age rating, since they then target a wider audience.
This is not a regulators move. This is the industry slightly adjusting their recommendations to parents. Will this change anything? Maybe it will help the industry avoid being targeted by actual regulation.
We won't know until we try it.
This law in worst case doesn't cause any problems and in best case solve problems. So win-win.
Well, this is going along with all the new requirements for companies to actually verify ages, so it won't be up to the parents.
Ok, so we all agreed that it is gambling. But for some reason we let kids gamble but only after they reach sixteen? This feels weird.
Kids have different maturities and should face increasing responsibilities as they age.
I guess it's not gambling, or it'd be covered by the UKs existing laws around gambling that set the minimum age to 18.
edit: I'm pointing out the UK has apparently decided lootboxes are not gambling, because if they did classify it as gambling it'd be covered by existing gambling laws that restrict it to 18+.
Not that I personally hold that opinion, though I can see how I could have phrased my original message better.
It's a stupid decision by the government, they should be 18+ and recognised for being gambling.
> I'm pointing out the UK has apparently decided lootboxes are not gambling
Wow, considering how the UK has been going full Taliban on everything why stop at lootboxes? Guess the politicians are getting some money/bribes from the lootbox companies.
Brain development of a 16 year old is at least further along than a 13 year old.
I do understand the rationale; and I have known kids who were addicted to gaming. So I don't disagree that this kind of addiction-mechanism in games, is somewhat similar to e. g. casino gambling where some people get hooked up and may be unable to exit that addiction, leading to massive loss. People are different - some are very easy to addict. Others have strategies against that. My simple strategy was to never start gambling - and never pay for playing a game (aside from the initial purchase, but the last game I bought was in the 1990s; back then games were IMO better too, ignoring the graphics).
Having said that, though, when I also combine this news with the attempt to force operating systems into sniffing for my age at all times, I am still totally against this. This kind of over-eager bureaucracy is not good. It reminds me of attempts to prohibit alcohol. Yes, it is not the same, a loot box does not cause physical symptoms really, compared to alcohol or, say, harder drugs - but states seem too eager to want to restrict people. Or monitor them, such as in the case of "age verification". So now this legislation is another basis to support mandatory age sniffing of everyone. So I am completely against it now.
Yet again more moves which take away the liberty of all citizens and users instead of restricting predatory companies and products..
How much access to money parents want to give their kids is up to the parents.
What people do with their own money, including kids, is up to the people.
WHY are countries not enacting laws that punish companies for once? Say something like:
• "After 3-5 purchases of the same item with random contents the buyer should get the content they specifically want."
• "No item with random contents should cost more than N $\€"
• "Buyers should have N-M hours to get a refund for an item with random contents"
That way you could keep the "fun" and spirit of gambling without its destructive spiral and stuff
How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
I have kids and as a parent I use these ratings as a very loose guide combined with my own experience and understanding of the game in question. Other parents ignore them completely.
I agree more could be done to directly affect the companies, and there have been a lot of legal cases surrounding loot boxes aimed at children.
But this is a good complement to that. It makes it easier for parents to get aware of the issue.
> How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
For instance, by being used in further legislation to mandate age verification on all operating systems. Lo and behold, that is already happening - see California.
One can not view a single law and assume it is isolated, when in reality this is a move by lobbyists to further restrict people and sniff after them (see MidnightBSD giving in and adding a daemon that sniffs for user data; I am 100% certain systemd on Linux will follow suit, via a new systemd-sniffy daemon). Some companies pay good money for such legislation. So the answer to your question is very simple, actually. You just should not view it as an isolated way while ignoring everything else - lobbyists are sneaky. It reminds me of Google claiming it has no problem with ad-blockers, then they went on to destroy ublock origin (https://ublockorigin.com/).
I'm skeptical because this is not a new system part of those lobbyist agendas. This is a recommendation system which has been in effect for over 20 years. And this is a tweak to how they update recommendations.
> How does an age recommendation take away liberties?
They've already enacted mandatory age-verification-via-ID to use apps/features.
It seems they're gonna put as many "gates/fences" at every N age years to make sure they can surveil as many people in distinct age brackets as possible.
Up next: Be of at least N years to watch cartoons with animated violence?
That didn't really answer the question.
Adjusting an age-ratings system doesn't take liberty away from anyone. Parents can still allow their kids to play whatever games the parent deems is ok.
I agree with some of your other points, though: we should have legally mandated return periods for this sort of thing. Not sure how you'd enshrine price limits into law, though; that seems impractical.
> Not sure how you'd enshrine price limits into law, though; that seems impractical.
Thinking in childrens' terms:
• Any microtransaction <$1 is fine, up to 10 per week or 20 per month or whatever
• Anything between $1-$10 should be more limited
• Anything $10 or above should be limited to 1 per week
• No microtransaction should cost more than 50% of the game's own full price, if the game isn't free
That is just equalizing forms of gambling tho
"Traditional" gambling is already not allowed below 18yo
Nanny state?
Yeah, kids should be able to wander into bookies and place bets as they please. Let's let them buy cigarettes too while we're at it.
I don't know, maybe I'm an old fart, but I hadn't held a sum of money large enough to buy a pack of cigarettes until I turned 16.
I presume my parent knew what they were doing, so, yeah, nanny state.
Regulating gambling is not "nanny state", esp in relation to kids. Your personal experience as a kid, about whether you had money or not, is completely irrelevant as an argument.
Not at all. My experience in this case indicates that there is a correct behavioural pattern which avoids the issue entirely and requires zero government's intervention.
But if you insist on having a regulation, okay, I'm fine with it. What about the following regulation: each time a minor is found gambling or smoking, his/her parents are fined 100x times the stake/the price of cigarettes?
Loot boxes are an in-game feature allowing players to buy random mystery items with real or virtual currency
That's not how I use the term. I think of a loot box as a treasure chest or similar that you discover while exploring which, when opened, gives you some loot!
On the other hand if you're talking about a package with a random assortment of stuff in it that you buy without knowing what's inside, I call that a "grab bag" or "mystery bundle".
Am I too old? What games were primarily responsible for changing the vocabulary?
The term "loot box" has, since I want to say the early 2010s, referred to the mechanic described in the quote. It's hard for me to say what the earliest games were to create this mechanic, especially since its origin seems not to be in the traditional Western games but in East Asian games.
The model is very strongly associated with the rise of "live service" gaming, with Overwatch and Battlefield being some of the more notorious offenders.
I was under the impression Eastern games preferred the loan word 'gacha'.
Yes, but they're the same mechanic really, so the earliest popular "loot box" game is probably some gacha game.
It’s an expression. You don’t really win them by “exploring”, but by “playing the game”. You end a match? Lootbox. You played 3 days in a row! Lootbox. You opened the options screen? Lootbox.
They usually have a very involved opening animation with music and sounds specifically designed to maximize the feeling of anticipation. Once you see it it feels completely different from what you are describing, because it’s so obviously trying to maximize the gambling aspect of it. It’s like confusing genuine love with prostitution.
I started seeing this term come up everywhere when Overwatch first released. The common usage is much closer to mystery bundles as you describe, and regulators tend to be upset about them when real money gets involved. It feels an awful lot like gambling at that point.
The purchases are purposely similar to previous examples of gameplay in design and language.