PUBLIC, in collaboration with external researchers and the market research firm IPSOS, carried out research to understand the effectiveness of new industry-led protections in meeting the government objectives associated with Loot Boxes in video games.
The government’s objectives concerning loot boxes (features that produce randomised outcomes in video games) are as follows:
To analyse the effectiveness of these protections, the research questions focused on the acknowledgement by parents and children of the risks and expenditures incurred; and, simultaneously, the acknowledgement of the technical controls imposed on them, information about their characteristics, and possibilities of making a refund.
As this was a significantly large project, four distinct work streams were carried out:
Each work stream served to analyse different research questions. While the first two streams were used to assess the acknowledgement of risk and expenditure by parents and children, the third and fourth streams were designed to answer the questions concerning the availability of technical controls, the transparency of information, and the real possibility of obtaining refunds following an unauthorised purchase by a minor.
The content analysis, which was arguably the most novel of these research approaches, involved extracting audiovisual content from the gaming experience. This process served to evidence the existence (or lack thereof) of features associated with loot boxes that could fulfil the government's objectives.
We generated an extensive report detailing the findings of two significant and representative surveys. These surveys, conducted across two distinct samples, provided crucial information regarding:
Similarly, the content analysis furnished evidence of non-compliance from certain parts of the gaming industry with the supposed protection policies. Several games analysed showed a lack of information displayed, as app stores failed to disclose the existence of randomised items and loot boxes in the games they were offering.
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