DigitalDUAL-USE

Loot Boxes

What it is

Selling a sealed random draw inside a game — a box, pack, or “gacha” pull whose contents are unknown until paid for — so that a variable-ratio reward schedule, near-miss theatre, and an obscured price combine into a purchase that behaves like a wager.

How it works

A loot box is the variable reward schedule with money attached. The buyer pays a fixed amount for an unknown outcome drawn from a distribution the seller controls, which is the structure of a slot machine, and the opening animation supplies what slot designers call the near-miss: Clark and colleagues found that near-misses recruit the brain's win-related circuitry and increase the urge to continue. Surrounding design does the rest. Prices are quoted in an intermediate currency sold in bundles that never match, so the cash cost of a pull is hard to compute; rare items are visible on other players, adding status; and “pity” counters guarantee a reward after a run of losses, which reads as fairness and functions as a reason to keep going. Zendle and Cairns found that loot-box spending correlated with problem-gambling severity in a large survey, with heavier spending among those with more severe problems; Drummond and Sauer analysed popular games and found most met the psychological criteria for gambling. Regulators split: Belgium's Gaming Commission ruled in 2018 that several games' boxes violated gambling law, the Netherlands' authority acted against tradeable boxes before its ruling was overturned in 2022, and the UK chose industry-led measures. Odds disclosure is now required by Apple, Google, and Chinese law.

Real-world examples

•Star Wars Battlefront II (2017): progression tied to purchasable random crates provoked the most downvoted comment in Reddit's history and hearings in several legislatures; EA removed real-money purchases before launch and rebuilt the system.
•FIFA Ultimate Team packs, which generate well over a billion dollars a year for EA; Belgium's 2018 ruling and the Dutch regulator's 2020 fine (overturned on appeal in 2022) both concerned them.
•Counter-Strike weapon cases and the third-party “skin gambling” sites of 2016, where box contents tradeable for cash became casino chips; Valve issued cease-and-desist letters after the sites drew state gambling regulators.
•Gacha games such as Genshin Impact, which publish pull rates and pity thresholds — the disclosed end of the spectrum, and still a variable-ratio schedule sold in an intermediate currency.

Ethical guidelines

Where the line is

A random-item mechanic with published odds, a cash price, a spending cap, no cash-out, and no near-miss theatre, in a game adults chose, is a chance mechanic inside entertainment; it becomes manipulation when odds are hidden or misstated, items are tradeable for money, prices are buried in intermediate currency, near-misses are engineered, or the design reaches children.

●Publish the odds for every item tier at the point of purchase, in the game, and price pulls in the player's currency, not only in gems.
●No cash-out: items must not be tradeable for money, or the box is gambling in every legal sense.
●Age-gate and cap: no random-draw purchases for minors, spending limits by default, and a visible running total of what the player has spent on draws.
●No near-miss theatre: opening animations should not simulate almost-winning, and the rarest tier should not be shown “just missed” more often than its true rate.

How to defend against it

►Find the odds before buying — required on Apple and Google stores and under Chinese law — and convert them: a 0.6% rate means an expected 167 pulls, so multiply the cash price of a pull by 167 before deciding.
►Convert every pull to cash, always: work out what one gem costs in money from the bundle you actually bought and write the cash price of a box on a note by the screen.
►Set a monthly limit in money before playing and use the platform tools to enforce it: Screen Time purchase restrictions on iOS, purchase authentication on Google Play, and stored-card removal on consoles.
►For children, require approval for every purchase (Family Sharing “Ask to Buy”, Google Family Link) and never store a card on a child's account; most large unexpected bills come from stored cards.
►Treat the near-miss animation as the tell that the design is working on you, close the game when you notice it, and if spending is causing harm use gambling-support services (GamCare in the UK, the National Council on Problem Gambling in the US) — they cover loot boxes.

From the Defense Playbook

Report Dark Patternsminutes

When an interface tricks you (a hidden charge, a fake countdown, a cancellation maze, consent you never gave), document it and report it to the regulator and the platform, because enforcement against deceptive design is driven by complaint data and one documented report protects people who would never have spotted the trick.

Vulnerable-Audience Screenminutes

Before launch, ask who will actually receive the message, which of them are least able to evaluate or resist it, and what it does to them; then change the targeting, the tactic, or the safeguards so that the campaign does not get its results from the people least able to say no.

Every playbook entry states how strong its evidence is and when not to use it. Browse the full playbook.

References

Zendle, D., & Cairns, P. (2018). Video game loot boxes are linked to problem gambling: Results of a large-scale survey. PLOS ONE, 13(11)
The survey finding that loot-box spending rises with problem-gambling severity.
Drummond, A., & Sauer, J. D. (2018). Video game loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(8), 530-532
The analysis of popular games showing most loot-box systems meet psychological criteria for gambling.
Clark, L., Lawrence, A. J., Astley-Jones, F., & Gray, N. (2009). Gambling near-misses enhance motivation to gamble and recruit win-related brain circuitry. Neuron, 61(3), 481-490
The near-miss effect that loot-box opening animations reproduce.
Belgian Gaming Commission (Kansspelcommissie) (2018). Research Report on Loot Boxes. Kansspelcommissie, April 2018
The finding that paid loot boxes in several major games constituted games of chance under Belgian law.

Last reviewed 2026-09-07

Suggest a correction

Detect Loot Boxes in any text

Paste any message, email, or article into our free Manipulation Detector to see if Loot Boxes or other techniques are being used on you.

Try the Detector Free Create Free Account

Dark Patterns in UX: How Apps Manipulate Your Behavior

Subscription traps, misleading interfaces, and engineered addiction. Understanding the persuasion techniques built into the apps you use every day.

7 min read

OSINT for Beginners: Open Source Intelligence Explained

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) uses publicly available data to gather actionable insights. Here is a beginner-friendly guide to what OSINT is and how it is used.

10 min read