{"id":671865,"date":"2025-05-28T02:44:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T23:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/new-study-finds-rampant-non-compliance-and-no-enforcement\/"},"modified":"2025-05-28T02:44:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T23:44:40","slug":"new-study-finds-rampant-non-compliance-and-no-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/new-study-finds-rampant-non-compliance-and-no-enforcement\/","title":{"rendered":"New study finds rampant non-compliance and no enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Credit: Artem Podrez from Pexels
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Loot boxes and gacha are gambling-like products inside video game<\/a>s that players buy to obtain random rewards. Concerns have been raised about consumers, particularly children, experiencing financial harm and developing gambling problems. The previous Conservative UK government asked the industry, represented by Ukie, to try self-regulating, rather than to impose legislation.<\/p>\n

Following the highest standard of transparency and open science<\/a>, registered report research published<\/a> in Royal Society Open Science<\/i> now reveals that these self\u2010regulations are very poorly complied with and are not enforced at all.<\/p>\n

Noncompliance is widespread. Contrary to promises made to the UK public, none of the 100 highest\u2010grossing iPhone games sought explicit parental consent before enabling loot box purchasing by under\u201018s. Only 23.5% disclosed the presence of loot boxes in their marketing. Only 8.6% of the games consistently disclosed the probabilities of obtaining different rewards.<\/p>\n

Noncompliant games were reported to Ukie and the UK government more than half a year ago, but no enforcement action has been taken. All noncompliant games remain noncompliant but continue to be available for download<\/a>, even though Ukie promised in July 2023 that noncompliant games would face “severe fines” and “delisting” from app stores. The rules are therefore also not enforced.<\/p>\n

This state of widespread noncompliance and non\u2010enforcement fails to adequately protect consumers, particularly children, as originally promised. These companies are not just breaching industry self\u2010regulation, but also advertising regulation and consumer law. Other regulators, such as the Advertising Standards Authority, Trading Standards, and the Competition and Markets Authority, should more proactively enforce the law.<\/p>\n

Stricter regulation of loot boxes must be adopted as the industry self\u2010regulation experiment has failed again.<\/p>\n

For the avoidance of doubt, this study has been conducted independently of another study being conducted by Public Group International Ltd (t\/a PUBLIC) on commission from the UK Department for Culture, Media<\/a> and Sport (DCMS), for which the first author serves as an expert consultant. The results should be read in conjunction.<\/p>\n

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More information:<\/strong>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNon-compliance with and non-enforcement of UK loot box industry self-regulation on the Apple App Store: A longitudinal study on poor implementation, Royal Society Open Science<\/i> (2025). DOI: 10.1098\/rsos.250704<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Leon Y. Xiao et al, Assessing compliance with UK loot box industry self-regulation on the Apple App Store: a longitudinal study on the implementation process, Open Science Framework<\/i> (2025). DOI: 10.31219\/osf.io\/xmwgy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n Provided by
\n City University of Hong Kong
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\n Citation<\/strong>:
\n UK loot box self-regulation fails: New study finds rampant non-compliance and no enforcement (2025, May 27)
\n retrieved 27 May 2025
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2025-05-uk-loot-rampant-compliance.html\n <\/p>\n

\n This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
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