But this isn't the only bill! In total, 4 measures have been introduced in the Hawaii House and Senate. Two of them target the sale of video games specifically; those under the age of 21 would not be allowed to buy a game that uses in-game monitization with real world cash to play. The other set of bills would require publishers to display on the game boxes that the game includes loot boxes, and to disclose the probability rate of receiving the rewards. The second set of bills are similar to China's law that went into effect March of 2017. There is no date on when these bills will be brought up in Hawaii's House/Senate, but with 4 on the table, there's a good chance it will be this year.
If you ignore the bad quotes from the GameStop employees (“If you’re old enough to go to war, you should be able to play a video game where you don’t kill people in real life,” um what? You have to be 18 to sign up for military service in the U.S. M-rated games are for 17 and older. I think you're missing the point here, employee!), the loot box issue is a growing problem that will only get worse if developers don't reign in the practice.
Up until now, the video game industry has done pretty well at regulating itself. Not wanting to fall into the same pits as Hollywood, television, and books, the ESRB was formed to help provide some levity to monitoring content and ratings for video games. The wide-spread effect of loot boxes, both good and bad, is an issue that needs to be addressed. Whether it's additional ratings for the ESRB, or publishers putting loot stats on the game's info. If they don't soon enough, the U.S. government will do it for them.
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