A staggering number of gamers feel that loot boxes in video games are gambling, reveals a new survey about free to play business mechanics. The survey data comes out of the United Kingdom, where Members of Parliament have said that loot boxes are gambling and should be banned in games for children.
Mobile phone retailer CompareMyMobile has published the data form a survey in which 1,500 UK adults who are parents to children aged 16 and under were asked about the mobile gaming habits of themselves and their children. 74% of those surveyed said that they feel that video game loot boxes do constitute a form of gambling, while 65% felt that free to play games are addictive. 64% also said that free to play games make it easy for players to spend money.
This is despite the fact that the same survey found that loot box drop rates are astronomically low. In WWE Champions, a free to play WWE mobile game with an age rating of 12 and above, drop rates have been as low as 1.49% for spending $2.54 on a microtransaction.
This was the drop rate for the Ronda Rousey and Rey Mysterio cards during the Colossal Classics Week 4 Loot which began on June 1, 2020. These sort of rates are not new and the App Store and Google Play require developers to make loot box drop rates public however seeing it put plainly like this may be a shocker to some.
These low drop rates haven't stopped people from spending on loot boxes and other microtransactions in these games. 97% of people surveyed revealed that they have spent money on a free to play game with one person surveyed saying that they'd spent $7,000 on a game. Last year, there was a report that one Runescape player in the UK had spent $62,000 on the game. With some microtransactions costing above $300, it's not difficult to see how one player could spend so much.
Players may feel that these business mechanics are gambling, but it's unclear if anything will be done to remove loot boxes in games available to play in the UK. In places like Belgium, loot boxes are gambling in the legislation, making it a criminal offence to offer loot boxes in games available for those under the age of 18. Games publishers are likely to fight hard against this sort of legislation. Speaking to the UK government, EA called loot boxes "surprise mechanics," which saw it criticized for trying to obfuscate how they really work.
Source: CompareMyMobile