And a little more about the loot boxes. China is gradually introducing a daily limit on their purchase.

According to Abacus News, the local regulator began to demand the following from developers:

  • limit the number of loot boxes purchased per day (no more than 50 per player);
  • reveal the chances of losing valuable items;
  • guarantee the loss of certain items when buying a certain number of loot boxes.

China’s initiative partly resembles the actions of Western companies — Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and others. Recently, they promised to indicate the percentage of randomness in each loot box. However, so far only China requires setting the exact drop rate of items. For example, an item with a 10% chance of falling out must necessarily fall out in every 10th loot box. And ideally, the percentage should increase with each opened loot box.

It is very important for the government that the studios closely monitor the loot boxes and the algorithm of their action. After all, often, even if the game talks about a 20% chance of falling out, the real percentage can be 1%. It can be very difficult for the authorities to verify this.

Allen Zhu

Lawyer of the law firm He & Partners

As in the West, in China, they expect that the disclosure of the chance of falling out will force players to buy loot boxes more restrained. Note that two years ago, this country banned the purchase of loot boxes for real money.

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