New research from UK universities shows that loot boxes cause “financial and emotional harm” to children.
A new report, from Newcastle and Loughborough Universities, said that the “highly alluring” items being advertised to them while gaming was leading to an inability to track their spending.
It went on to recommend that loot boxes be restricted for sale to under 18s, and digital currencies within them be replaced by actual currency.
The report stated: “There are clear parallels between the visual and auditory design of chance-based mechanisms in digital games and the design of regulated gambling machines and systems.
“For example, we encountered slots and spinning wheels in many digital games played by children and young people as part of our empirical research. Many of these gambling-style mechanisms portray ‘near misses’, where the game gives the player the…
