The age rating organisation’s loot box presence warning label was POORLY applied.

• PEGI in Europe and the ESRB in North America started applying the ‘In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)’ label to games with loot boxes from April 2020.

  • However, both PEGI and the ESRB FAILED to correctly label a number of games containing loot boxes (including top titles like Genshin Impact and Diablo Immortal) since then.

• The warning label system is also implemented as part of the IARC (International Age Rating Coalition) that other regions, such as Australia, South Korea, and Germany, participate in.

  • However, 71.0% of popular games containing loot boxes on the Google Play Store did NOT display the label.

• This registered report has since been published and should be cited as: Xiao, L.Y. (2023). Beneath the label: unsatisfactory compliance with ESRB, PEGI and IARC industry self-regulation requiring loot box presence warning labels by video game companies. Royal Society Open Science, 10(3), Article 230270. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230270.

Policy Impact:

• Rating mistakes admitted by PEGI and the ESRB have been fixed: e.g., Genshin Impact was quickly correctly re-labelled by the ESRB.

• Through correspondence with PEGI, the ESRB, and the IARC, 79 (out of 84 reported) popular Android games containing loot boxes that I identified as non-compliant because they were not labelled have since been corrected and re-labelled.

• Importantly, PEGI has taken enforcement action (https://pegi.info/page/complaints-and-enforcement-cases) against Diablo Immortal (Activision Blizzard) and Hunt: Showdown Bounty Hunter - Limited Edition (Plaion) for failing to duly report loot box presence and thusly obtaining a PEGI rating based on incorrect information.

  • Both companies were fined €5,000 each for breaching the PEGI Code of Conduct, and the errors were corrected through re-labelling.

Games known to have taken compliance action following my study (very selected examples):

1. Genshin Impact (miHoYo/HoYoverse); 

2. Diablo Immortal (Activision Blizzard); 

3. Hunt: Showdown Bounty Hunter - Limited Edition (Plaion); 

4. Fire Emblem Heroes (Nintendo); 

5. Assassin’s Creed Rebellion (Ubisoft); 

6. EA SPORTS UFC Mobile 2 (Electronic Arts); 

7. Arena of Valor (Tencent); 

8. Disney Magic Kingdoms (Gameloft); 

9. MARVEL Future Fight (Netmarble); 

10. Magic Spellslingers (Wizards of the Coast); 

11. Identity V (NetEase); 

12. RuneScape (Jagex); 

13. F1 Clash (Hutch); 

14. Zynga Poker (Zynga); and

15. Board Kings (Playtika).

Media features:

• Reported on by more than 60 venues (including major video game media) in over 12 different languages, as listed below: