Hawaii's Sean Quinlan on Loot Boxes - 'It's Best for the Industry to Self-Regulate'

Rolling Stone / Glixel has a new interview with Hawaii's Sean Quinlan in which the issue of loot boxes and potential legislation are again at the forefront. The discussion centers on how Quinlan became aware of the situation (via Reddit) and what he believes the central issues are and what needs to be done to bring things under control. Each are considering legislative action, though both would prefer that the industry self-regulate.

Quinlan would like to see the ESRB get into the discussion with possible ratings warnings based on loot boxes and microtransaction. Speaking of EA and Star Wars: Battlefront II in particular, Quinlan said:

I was on Reddit one morning, and every single post on the front page was about Battlefront. I realized just how bad it has gotten. We’ve been on this path for 15 years with day-one DLC, subscription passes, pay-to-win. We as consumers kept accepting that, kept buying those games. Now we’re at a place where we need to consider, do we need to legislate? Does the ESRB have to consider a new rating that could deal with gambling and addictive mechanics?

I think the mechanism is so close to gambling, when we talk about psychology and the way addiction and reward works, I think whether or not it means the strict definition of gambling, it’s close enough and the impact is close enough. 

This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. EA and Disney are two of the largest companies not just in America, but the world and Star Wars is such a beloved property. That it is being used for evil is especially upsetting.

Quinlan and fellow legislator Chris Lee have been in touch with Hawaii's Attorney General Doug Chin and are currently waiting for his opinion prior to pursuing any further action in the State House.

You can read the full interview at RollingStone / Glixel.