Whether loot boxes truly do constitute a form a gambling seems to be a topic of discussion amongst commissions and governments around the world, but one new report has found that - psychologically speaking - there's a link between loot boxes and gambling.
This report comes from the Australian Environment and Communications Reference Committee (ECRC), which was tasked by the Australian government back in June to ascertain whether there is a link between gambling and randomised rewards found in games today.
They've now presented their full report (which can be found in full here), and it concludes that 45% of the games investigated meet the necessary psychological criteria to be considered gambling. The report specifically calls out games such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, recommending that loot boxes in general should be regulated in the same way as other gambling systems are.
What do you make of these findings?