Spain to consider banning loot boxes to protect minors

Shortly after the House of Representatives of the Netherlands received a bill asking the government to consider a ban on loot boxes in video games, something similar is underway in Spain. The country’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs has launched a public consultation in which it will seek input on whether it should press on and indeed restrict the availability of such digital containers in video games.

Belgium has already banned loot boxes, and the Netherlands recently blocked the launch of Diablo Immortal, Activision Blizzard’s newest game, for fears that the monetization model was too reminiscent of gambling. Spain has had a fairly negative outlook on loot boxes under Minister of Consumer Affairs Alberto Garzón.

Loot boxes cannot characterize as an outright form of gambling, the Ministry believes, but this doesn’t mean that they do not have some clear similarities which mandate the establishment of specific rules that regulate them. For one, loot boxes should be restricted to minors and people under the age of 18, which is the gambling age in Spain.

This will come with greater restrictions and less anonymity for video gamers who will need to b verifying their identity if they want to use loot boxes. This is not too unlike what China is doing right now to control its gamer population, limiting it to only a couple of hours a week.

The draft proposed by the Ministry of Consumption Affairs wants to establish clear-cut rules about the advertisement of such products. One idea is to have them aligned with how gambling is regulated. In other words, loot boxes could only be advertised between 1:00 am and 5:00 am if the proposal is approved.

Any ambiguities about the nature of loot boxes would have to be eliminated. For example, in the early day, loot boxes would often not display the percentage they had of dropping a specific item. This has been amended in most jurisdictions.

Game developers would then be asked to also make sure that there is a self-exclusion scheme that can enable players to exclude themselves from seeing loot boxes in the first place. Players would also have the ability to set spending limits on how much they can spend on loot boxes in the first place.

All of these suggestions are akin to what the gambling industry must do to protect consumers. Even though a court in the Netherlands has ruled that loot boxes are not like gambling, lawmakers remain skeptical and are determined to keep vulnerable consumers safe.

Image credit: EA