ESRB Will Label Games with "In-Game Purchases"

Last we checked in with loot boxes, things were really picking up steam against the games industry’s favorite pay-to-play scheme. Politicians have been rallying pretty strongly against it, and Hawaiian senator finally came forward with four definitive bills that are poised to tackle the issue: two that would force games with loot boxes to warn players they contain such systems and two that would forbid such games from being sold to minors under the age of 21.

While the latter two are way too far in the wrong direction, after much consideration, the ESRB – who had at one point proudly declared that loot boxes were not gambling – seems to agree with the man on the former, and has just announced that from here on out “in-game purchases” will become another criteria which the organization uses to judge games.

The label will be used on any game that allows you to use real money to get “bonus levels, skins, surprise items (such as item packs, loot boxes, mystery awards), music, virtual coins and other forms of in-game currency, subscriptions, season passes and upgrades (e.g., to disable ads),”

…You’ll probably note two things. The first is that this system doesn’t specifically call out loot boxes, but rather, anything that could theoretically make a game cost more than it did at base. The second is that this basically means every single triple-A game made in the past four years will qualify for the label. Which is absolutely true… which, it seems, makes the label absolutely worthless in completing the primary goal of “warning parents.”

But hey, there’s a reason for that, as ESRB president Patricia Vance explains:

“I’m sure you’re all asking why aren’t we doing something more specific to loot boxes. We’ve done a lot of research over the past several weeks and months, particularly among parents. What we’ve learned is that a large majority of parents don’t know what a loot box is. Even those who claim they do, don’t really understand what a loot box is. So it’s very important for us to not harp on loot boxes per se, to make sure that we’re capturing loot boxes, but also other in-game transactions.”

While I don’t strictly disagree with her logic, it is still kind of dodging the issue. And it might backfire, and make all games unpalatable for unaware parents. But then, transparency is always, always good: and if parents deciding they don’t want their kids playing a game that might ask more of them, then this is strictly more power to the consumer. So I guess it’s good.

We’ll have to see if that’s how it actually works out, though.