Google updated the Googel Play developer policies recently, adding a section for loot boxes odds. The update appears to have been implemented in late May, 2019, considering that the section relating to loot box odds was not present on the monetization page back on April 30th, 2019.
Android Police is reporting that over on the Monetization and Ads page for Google Play content policies, there’s a small blurb relating to the odds associated with loot box item acquisitions. It states…
“Apps offering mechanisms to receive randomized virtual items from a purchase (i.e. “loot boxes”) must clearly disclose the odds of receiving those items in advance of purchase.”
This blurb seems to have been added after ramped up talk this year about legislating loot boxes as gambling mechanisms, and is similar to the requirement of odd disclosures in games released in China, as reported by Mondaq. There’s currently a bill in the works aimed at restricting access that people under 18 have to loot boxes.
If loot boxes are regulated as a form of gambling, then it means that any publisher implementing loot boxes into their game would have to abide by the exact same gambling laws as other companies have to abide by, which means they would have to get a gambling license, and all their games containing loot boxes would have to be rated AO or Adults Only by the ESRB in North America.
As pointed out by Exclusively Games, it wasn’t just the loot boxes that Google Play is focused on. The distribution platform is also reiterating its stance against hate speech, violent content, sexual content, and “inappropriate content”.
Many of those categories were already barred from Google Play since 2017, but Google decided to refresh users and developers on these policies on their content policy page where they have a list of colorful tabs showing what kind of content is not allowed on the Google Play store.
Typically this includes no sexually explicit content, no nudity, no “hate speech”, no terrorist content, no bullying or harassment, no cryptomining, and no child exploitation.
Digging deeper into those policies, though, it’s become apparent that Google has a hard-on not just for sexually explicit content but for female attractiveness in general. They’ve been forcing developers to censor cleavage across multiple games in recent times, with the distribution store becoming as prude as the CJWs in terms of sexuality. However, Google is also adopting all of the lingo and censorship that is oftentimes accompanied by SJWs. It’s the worst of both worlds all wrapped up in one nice little bundle representing the Age of the Clown.
(Thanks for the news tips Red and Animatic)