'Spending is entirely optional in our game. Regardless of where one stands on banning loot boxes, it has opened up a debate around whether having them within a game is a form of gambling or if they represent player choice. 'I do not think there is sufficient evidence that loot boxes are analogous to gambling.' Dr. (Image credit: EA) Gambling or Player Choice? The hope is a report will be issued by the end of this year. The government commissioned Abertay University to assess evidence obtained in June 2020. Yet an investigation by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, started in 2019, is assessing if this should remain the case. In the UK, loot boxes are not classed as gambling. It is not going to solve the problem, you are just trying to take an authoritarian point of view on it rather than being able to understand what the cause of it is and regulating it better.' 'I think Belgium banned them prematurely. 'When you are scared of anything, or something new comes along, like loot boxes, and you don’t like it, you ban it,' says clinician and video game researcher Dr. Both decisions have divided opinion within a nuanced argument.

In 2020, Holland fined EA 10 million euros for violating the gambling act in the country. Belgian MPs declared that in-game purchases where the player does not know the contents until after buying it would be banned for users under 18. In 2018, Belgium banned loot boxes, classing them as gambling, ironically with the release of Star Wars Battlefront II, an EA published game.

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