Brazil made an interesting move recently, passing legislation that makes it illegal for games to sell loot boxes to children within the country, instead mandating that either a game has implemented age verification technology built into it or that the game itself is labelled as a high age rating game to compensate, essentially turning any game with lot boxes in them automatically into an 18+ rated game.
Now in my mind, this is a great move. Loot boxes are one of those insidious tactics that game companies will do to try and tap into the primal urge to gamble in kids, causing further development or financial issues down the line, so any steps to prevent that are great. However, the age verification requirement may lead to troubles, just look at the UK and their ‘Online Children’s Safety Act’ to further prove how problematic such a system can be. Many publishers won’t want their game to be rated 18+, so many of them may include age verification technology, and with that access to a large variety of data that they could then sell further on. It’s uncomfortable, but perhaps these are the sacrifices we need to make to keep gambling away from children. It remains to be seen how effective these changes will actually be, I just hope it doesn’t create further evils.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.