Australia
Australian Parliamentary Committee Backs Age Checking for Loot Boxes
Australia is all set to become the latest nation that supports age verification for playing loot boxes. An Australian parliamentary committee has recommended age verification as part of regulating loot boxes and video games.
The “Protecting the age of innocence” report that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs submitted recommends that the country lay out “options for restricting access to loot boxes in video games, including through the use of age verification.”
The committee also recommends that a “relevant government department report to the Australian Government on options for restricting access to loot boxes and other simulated gambling elements in computer and video games to adults aged 18 years or over.”
While the report acknowledges that loot boxes are not legally defined as gambling under the country’s Interactive Gambling Act of 2001, loot boxes can still “act as a gateway to problem gambling and associated harms later in life” is still mentioned as a “concern in the community.”
It also recommends that there be “tighter restrictions and warnings on video games that include micro-transactions (such as ‘loot boxes’ and ‘skins’)” — thus bringing up the notion of age-related restrictions even for non-random loot.