Proposed Hawaii bill illegal to sell loot boxes to those under 21

Loot boxes might be made illegal for folks under 21

Loot boxes were the most controversial gaming topic in 2017. Almost all triple A developers placed loot boxes in their games and because of that reason they received a lot of hate. EA was one of these companies. EA released many big titles in 2017 but most of them didn’t do very well. Mass Affect Andromeda had various bugs, the sport games did like all other EA sport games, Battlefront 2 did very bad, and Need for Speed Payback received a lot of hate. Star Wars Battlefront 2 was promising for players but when players got their hands on the bets they realized that the game was a pay to win. EA did many things to fix the loot box problem and eventually removed them from Battlefront 2 but the Battlefront 2 loot box situation got politicians involved. Hawaii’s politicians are the leading politicians in the anti loot box movement. 

Hawaiian legislators have revealed a bill that would be devastating for games with loot boxes. House Bill 2727 requires publishers to label any game with random purchase system and reveal the rate of all rewards given to players through paid loot boxes. Another house bill takes it even further, the House Bill 2686 would not allow sellers to sale games with any sort of paid loot box system to any gamer under the age of 21. If this house bill passes it could be devastating to developers such as EA because all of their games have loot boxes and their games would be rated AO. That means that the game should be played by anyone 18 or older. Games with an AO rating will not be sold by most popular retailers such as GameStop. 

This doesn’t mean that any games with microtransactions will be rated AO if this bill passes. This is only for games that have randomized loot boxes not games that allow players to buy game currency with real money.

Tags and Keywords:
Technology, Video Games, Loot Boxes, Hawaii bill, Gambling

Ali F
Latest posts by Ali F (see all)