UK LOOT BOX PRINCIPLES

I  sat on the UK Government Technical working Group for Loot Boxes, which today has published 11 principles for the video games industry to improve protections for children, young people and adults.

After 11 months of work, the Technical Working Group on Loot Boxes was finally able to publish the 11 principles for the video games industry to improve protections for children, young people and adults.

• Make available technological controls to effectively restrict anyone under the age of 18 from acquiring a Loot Box

• Drive awareness of and uptake of technological controls with all players

• Form an expert panel on age assurance in the games industry

• Disclose the presence of Loot Boxes prior to purchase

• Give clear probability disclosures

• Design and present Loot Boxes in a manner that is easily understandable

• Support the implementation of the Video Games Research Framework

• Continue to tackle the unauthorised external sale of items acquired from Loot Boxes for real money

• Commit to lenient refund policies on directly purchased Loot Boxes or purchased in-game currency used to acquire Loot Boxes

• Advance protections for all players

• Work with UK Government and other relevant stakeholders to measure the effectiveness of these principles

MGIF will be working with the mobile games sector over the next 12 months to implement these principles.