Misleading omissions of loot box presence disclosures: widespread unfair commercial practices in video game advertising on social media in Ireland and the EU

Loot boxes, gacha, and other gambling-like in-game purchases offer random rewards for money and may cause consumer harm, especially to children. Interpreting and strictly enforcing pre-existing consumer law to require companies to disclose loot box presence in all advertising may address some concerns. The European Commission requires such disclosures in the EU, including Ireland. However, in practice, this rule is not complied with nor enforced. Only 2.4% of Irish social media ads for popular games containing loot boxes were compliant with EU consumer law: 88.6% failed to disclose at all, and 9.0% disclosed without sufficient visual prominence. We thus discredit the industry narrative that only a small minority of bad actors are harming EU consumers. Contrarily, leading companies hide important information from consumers. Policymakers should cautiously approach the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act: (i) properly enforcing pre-existing law could already achieve some proposed aims, and (ii) its enforcement is unlikely to be effective.