The national health system in the United Kingdom believes that reward boxes in video games have harmful effects on the youngest.
Claire Murdoch, director of mental health at the National Health System (NHS), the national health system of the United Kingdom, has claimed actions against loot boxes in video games as they are considered harmful to the younger public. At their discretion, these types of random-based content boxes "prepare children for addiction by teaching them how to bet."
The NHS, aware of the gradual increase in gambling addiction from the younger sector, has confirmed the opening of a new treatment center in response to these concerns around the video game; an opening that joins the other fourteen NHS clinical centers aimed at treating people affected by gambling.
However, Murdoch expressly asks the authorities of the country to take measures for these risks, which directly affect the design policies of these contents of video game companies, whose products are in many cases also aimed at the public less than eighteen years.
One of the claims of the director of the NHS is greater visibility and prominence when it comes to showing the presence or existence of reward boxes (based on the randomness of their contents) before making the purchase of one of those lots of loot; either with the exact percentage to achieve a specific object or with other graphic measures, which allow both parents and children to be sure of what they are buying and what they are going to find.
As we say, the complaint is raised not only to the videogame sector but also to the current legislation that governs the Game of Chance (CBE) Commission in the United Kingdom, described as insufficient by this agency. From the Royal Public Health Society of the United Kingdom, led by Shirley Cramer, they support the NHS initiative in defining as "threat to the health and well-being of young people" everything that surrounds "hidden bets" in video games "
The British Parliament has already recommended its regulation for "lack of honesty"
It should be added that, last August, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo reached an agreement of conformity when demanding that players know the probability of obtaining an object from the loot boxes, an agreement that was signed correspondingly with ESA (Entertainment and Software Association).
To this we must that, after the investigation launched in early 2019 by the Ministry of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports of the United Kingdom with the intention of assessing the impact and levels of addiction of loot boxes, the British Parliament published in Last September, a report of 84 pages where they consider that there is a total “lack of honesty and transparency” in its application in video games; a situation described as "unacceptable".
The call to an international consensus comes from afar. Already in September 2018, a total of fifteen regulatory bodies from Europe and one from the United States announced the creation of an international forum for the current risk of being addicted to gambling in loot boxes or loot boxes to ensure that those contents programmed in video games were never a bet, that the random factor disappeared.
