The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against three major gaming studios over their failure to disclose the presence of loot boxes in ads for their games on social media.
Researcher Leon Y. Xiao, who submitted the claims, says that these complaints were made following research showing that "over 93% of 288 adverts for popular games" that featured loot boxes didn't disclose the presence of those loot boxes.
The studios in question are EA (representing the game Golf Clash), Jagex (representing RuneScape, naturally), and Miniclip (representing 8 Ball Pool, of course).
In all three cases, Xiao alleged that ads for the games "omitted material information", and the ASA agreed, stating that the presence of loot boxes "was material to a consumer's decision to purchase or download a game".
As such, the ASA says, marketers should be required to include that information in advertising for the game, and in all three cases, the companies in question failed to do so.
EA says its ads omitted loot box information due to "human error", while Jagex claimed its offending Facebook ad was "constrained by time and space" (and presumably, the studio doesn't mean in the metaphysical sense).
Miniclip, meanwhile, argued that because players can play 8 Ball Pool for free, its ads were fine. The studio did, however, pull the ad in question and promised that future ads would contain loot box disclosure.
This is far from the first time games have fallen foul of the UK ASA.
Back in April 2022, the ASA accused mobile developer ABI Global of showing an adult ad in games intended for kids, while Homescapes and Gardenscapes developer Playrix also had complaints submitted about its games with reference to misleading advertising.
The ASA's decision is effectively just a slap on the wrist for these companies, but it does demonstrate that loot boxes haven't gone away; they're still very much alive and well in many games. Watch this space for more.
