10 Ways The Gaming Industry Can Improve In The 2020s

5. Strictly Regulate Loot Boxes

For the most part, nobody wants government interference in gaming. Given the ridiculous narratives peddled by some officials in the past around games being responsible for violence, crime, Satanism, bad weather, spilled milk and so on, we’d like to keep them as far from this industry as possible.

That being said, the introduction of loot boxes to video games over the past decade has meant that some governments have been forced to intervene. These 'surprise mechanics', as EA so arrogantly put it, are when players pay a set amount to open some form of mystery box that may contain a new weapon, skin, playable character etc.

The issue with this is that customers don’t know what they’re getting and are therefore technically gambling. This preys on addictive personalities and is also a mechanic that has not been age restricted, meaning that anyone could purchase a loot box in any game from a legal standpoint.

Belgium recently outright banned loot boxes under their gambling laws and frankly, more countries need to follow suit. This predatory system has the potential to encourage children to gamble, with headlines about them inadvertently spending thousands in-game becoming all the more frequent.

Seriously, can we please just dropkick EA into the sea?