The Loot Box Bill has Reached the U.S. Senate
Zack Palm
The debate revolving around loot boxes continues to become heated, and now things have taken another drastic step towards in United States law enforcing how game companies provide these to players as the loot box bill enters the United States Senate. The bill is called Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act, and the full text of the law has also released.
You can read the bill’s full text here, at your leisure. It’s 18 pages long and continues information about attempting to accurately define what a loot box is, and how it takes advantage of players, notably younger audiences.
Unfortunately, most of the text is open to interpretation. The big thing behind this bill is pushing microtransactions or methods of paying to win to young audiences, and those behind the bill wish to prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having access to them. However, the law plays loose with the wording by wanting to limit access to any game a minor could gain access to playing. The text in the bill doesn’t define if games with microtransactions can only happen in games rated-M or even rated-T.
So far, we only have the bill’s official text. No one has officially read it on the Senate floor or formally discussed the matter beyond closed doors.
What happens next? With the bill filed, the Senate must issue a vote to bring it before them to discuss it amongst themselves. After that, they can edit the proposal, adjust amendments, fine-tune the text, and give a more precise definition to how the bill is going to prevent loot boxes from reaching players under the age of 18.
We’ll have to wait and see if the U.S. Senate plans to discuss it, and this will happen at a later date.
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