The NHS’ mental health boss has said loot boxes are “setting kids up for addiction by teaching them to gamble”.
In a strongly-worded statement, NHS mental health director Claire Murdoch called for a crackdown on gambling addiction risks – and that would involve video game companies banning loot boxes from games children play.
The NHS confirmed the opening of a new treatment centre in response to growing concerns about addiction to gaming. This sits alongside up to 14 new NHS gambling clinics nationwide designed to address significant mental ill health linked to addiction.
2019 saw loot boxes and video game addiction hit the mainstream headlines. During a meeting in June 2019, representatives from Epic and EA struggled to answer questions from MPs about how children play Fortnite and FIFA and the systems put in place to protect them. In the meeting with the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, topics of discussion included play time, which the Epic rep said he had no idea about and the EA rep said EA doesn’t track; duty of care to players, which, bafflingly, EA and Epic seemed to argue against; the potential for addiction and the World Health Organisation’s recent high-profile classification of gaming disorder as a disease, which, frustratingly, EA and Epic failed to acknowledge; and loot boxes. Kerry Hopkins from Electronic Arts stepped in to say: “we don’t call them loot boxes – we call them surprise mechanics.”