Beneath the Label: Assessing Video Games' Compliance with ESRB and PEGI Loot Box Warning Label Industry Self-Regulation

This extended abstract examines whether video game companies and rating bodies are adhering to industry self-regulation requiring warning labels on games containing loot boxes, which are randomized paid rewards that raise concerns about gambling-like harms, particularly for children and vulnerable consumers. Focusing on the ESRB in North America, PEGI in Europe, and the IARC for digitally released games, the work centers on the labels adopted in April 2020 and asks two questions: whether the ESRB and PEGI have applied the warning consistently across their respective systems, and whether companies have accurately labelled games containing loot boxes. The study explicitly does not evaluate whether the labels change consumer behaviour.

The proposed methodology has two parts. The first compares ESRB and PEGI rating lists to calculate a consistency rate, with a figure below 95 percent being treated as evidence of inconsistent application. The second samples 100 games previously documented as containing loot boxes from the Google Play Store, checks whether the label appears, and replays non-labelled games to confirm they still contain loot boxes, calculating a compliance rate with the same 95 percent threshold. Both studies are framed as planned analyses, and the abstract states its conclusions would recommend either retaining the measure or pursuing improved or stricter regulation depending on the results.

Background throughout the paper draws on prior research suggesting that warning labels and probability disclosures have often been implemented sub-optimally in the video game industry and that comparable industries have used corporate actions that weaken product warnings. The author also notes that prior experimental work has found current loot box warnings ineffective for informing consumers, a finding this study does not itself test. The work is an extended abstract, and the author indicates that its full results were subsequently published in Royal Society Open Science in 2023.