Warning! Poor Compliance with Loot Box Probability Disclosure and Warning Regulations in Taiwan

This study examines how well game companies comply with Taiwan's legal requirements for loot box probability disclosure and warning messages, which are unique in requiring percentage-based odds for each individual reward and a specific cautionary statement about chance-based outcomes. The authors compiled the 100 highest-grossing iPhone games in Taiwan as of September 2025, reviewing their app store listings, recording an hour of gameplay from new account creation, and screenshotting every loot box encountered. The analysis focuses on whether these games met the disclosure and warning obligations established by Taiwan's Consumer Protection Office in 2022.

Loot boxes were present in 93 of the 100 games, and 69 percent of these disclosed their presence on the Apple App Store compared with 45 percent on the Google Play Store, pointing to noncompliance with platform developer policies. Probability disclosure was more common than full compliance: 89.2 percent of games with loot boxes disclosed odds for at least one loot box, but only 36.6 percent did so for all of them, and just 24.7 percent met both the item-level and percentage-based formatting requirements across every loot box. Warning messages appeared in only 23.7 percent of games containing loot boxes, and 76.3 percent displayed none at all.

The findings reveal particularly weak compliance with the warning requirement, with 29.6 percent of the non-compliant games nonetheless incorporating the obligation into their own Terms and Conditions, suggesting awareness without implementation. The authors argue that such gaps mislead consumers and create a false impression of regulatory protection, and they conclude that stronger monitoring and enforcement are necessary for Taiwan's regulations to meaningfully inform players, offering lessons for policymakers elsewhere considering similar rules.