While EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was a highly-anticipated title following the success of the original Battlefront, the game has been marred in controversy with regards to the loot box feature, which some felt was a bit unreasonable and also felt a bit like gambling. This led to EA pulling the feature temporarily.
Unfortunately the company’s problems aren’t over because over in the state of Hawaii, Democrat representative Chris Lee announced that the state is looking into the issue and could be interested in introducing a legislation that would ban children from playing games with loot boxes in them.
According to Lee, he said that they needed to “protect kids who are underage, not psychologically or emotionally mature enough to be able to gamble which is why gambling is prohibited under 21.” State Representative Sean Quinlan also added that with Star Wars being one of the most popular IPs in the world and with it aimed at children, it shouldn’t be allowed to be encourage kids to gamble.
We’re sure that gambling was not the intention behind the loot boxes, but that’s how it’s being looked at right now. Over in France, a Senator has requested that the matter be looked into, while Belgian authorities have recently declared loot boxes to be considered as gambling, and are looking into having the feature banned across Europe.