Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft will start requiring that major game publishers disclose their loot box odds for future games released on their respective platforms.

Loot boxes, those virtual gambling machines that EA likes to call “surprise mechanics,” are a touchy subject in the games industry. More and more officials are likening loot boxes to slot machines and roulette wheels, where the odds are most definitely not in your favor. It’s gotten bad enough that a US Senator is calling for a blanket ban on loot boxes.

Stories about bank accounts being emptied by kids stealing their parents’ credit cards don’t help either.

Major game makers and publishers are rightfully worried about what this will do for their many-billions-of-dollars industry. That’s why the biggest names in the biz have banded together to make loot boxes a little more transparent.

“I’m pleased to announce this morning that Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have indicated to ESA a commitment to new platform policies with respect to the use of paid loot boxes in games that are developed for their platform,” Entertainment Software Association chief policymaker Michael Warnecke announced at the Federal Trade Commission’s Inside the Game workshop yesterday.

“Specifically, this would apply to new games and game updates that add loot box features. And it would require the disclosure of the relative rarity or probabilities of obtaining randomized virtual items in games that are available on their platforms.”

The ESA and the trio of console makers are targeting 2020 for the start of the new loot box rules. It’s currently not known where the odds of receiving specific items in any given loot box will be disclosed—either in-game or on the game’s website.

Warnecke also indicated that many other publishers have signed on to the plan to disclose loot box odds. Those publishers include Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Bethesda, Bungie, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Wizards of the Coast.

However, there are still quite a few big-name holdouts. Capcom, Disney, Epic Games, Konami, Sega, Riot, Square Enix, Tencent, and Gearbox have not signed on to disclose loot box odds, and are instead waiting for legislation to either compel them to do so or prevent the sale of loot boxes entirely.

(via GamesIndustry.biz)

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