Star Wars Battlefront 2 could well serve as the tipping for loot boxes, after a US Senator called the game “a trap” and condemned its “predatory” loot boxes.
Chris Lee, the state representative for Hawaii, stood alongside fellow politicians in order to encourage action against loot boxes such as those featured in Battlefront 2 in order to “ensure future protections for kids, youth, and everyone [else].”
“This game is a Star Wars-themed online casino designed to lure kids into spending money. It’s a trap,” he continued.. “This is something we need to address to ensure that particularly kids who are underage, who are not psychologically and emotionally mature enough to gamble — which is why gambling is prohibited under 21 — are protected from being trapped into these cycles which have compelled many folks to spend thousands of dollars in gaming fees online.”
Also: Angry Gamer Launches $240,000 Campaign to Take EA to Court for Battlefront 2‘s Microtransactions
Highlights of his speech were published online, with Lee taking to Reddit to further elaborate upon this thoughts. Lee stated that Hawaii’s representatives have “been in discussions with our counterparts in a number of other states who are also considering how to address this issue,” and that “change is difficult at the federal level, but states can and are taking action.”
“These kinds of lootboxes and microtransactions are explicitly designed to prey upon and exploit human psychology in the same way casino games are so designed,” Lee continued. “This is especially true for young adults who child psychologists and other experts explain are particularly vulnerable. These exploitive mechanisms and the deceptive marketing promoting them have no place in games being marketed to minors, and perhaps no place in games at all.”
That Star Wars Battlefront 2 is now being discussed by politicians in the US is bad news for EA and Disney, as if this travels any further then the Star Wars license could well be seen as the property that forced government action. With regulations already being proposed in Belgium and France, both EA and Disney’s reputations are coming under fire, with this controversy showing no signs of letting up any time soon.
