Does self regulation by gaming companies for the use of loot boxes work?

Loot boxes in video games can be purchased with real-world money in exchange for random rewards. Stakeholders are concerned about loot boxes' similarities with gambling and their potential harms (e.g., overspending). The UK Government has decided to first try relying on industry self-regulation to address the issue, rather than to impose legislation. These self-regulations have since been published by Ukie (UK Interactive Entertainment). Many stakeholders are interested in a transparent and independent assessment of their implementation. Compliance with some of these self-regulatory measures are empirically testable. The highest-grossing iPhone games will be played for up to one hour to confirm whether they contain loot boxes. If they do, probability disclosures will be searched for in-game; presence disclosures will be searched for on the Apple App Store product page; and attempts will be made to purchase loot boxes without parental consent whilst pretending to be under 18 (e.g., entering an appropriate birth date whenever demanded). This will be done six months after the publication of the principles (baseline; to track the implementation progress) and then again 12 months after their publication (follow-up; to check compliance, as by that point all games would be required to comply). Conclusions will be drawn as to whether the measures have been complied with by companies to an adequate degree. In addition, by checking whether the games identified as non-compliant at baseline have since complied or been removed at follow-up, conclusions will be drawn as to whether stakeholders (e.g., Apple) are enforcing the regulations.