They can't be traded for legal reasons. If you were able to trade them, that would mean they'd have monetary value. As such, they'd be a nail in the coffin of labeling loot boxes as gambling.
A quote from the report[0]:
> At present, the Gambling Commission states that purchasing loot boxes does not meet the regulatory definition of licensable gambling under the Gambling Act 2005 because the in-game items have no real-world monetary value outside the games.
They later reference this written evidence[1] that suggest that such legal framework is too tight and needs to be broadened.
Pretty important point for how far we should regulate something.
I think the gaming community would want loot-boxes completely banned under the guise of "gambling".
The individuals that would spend an unhealthy amount on these loot-boxes are not individuals that will stop their behavior if lootboxes are banned or even regulated.
These individuals have know that you can't get your money back, you can't earn more money and you can blow your life savings on it. With no return promised, monetarily, these individuals know the money they spend can't be gambled back. Thats the crux of gambling and their laws. People truly believes one more bet and they can get it all back.
It's insane if a person on Overwatch or Fortnite truly believes the money they waste if beyond their budget is a good investment at all. That problem lies with the individual not EA and loot boxes.
Those people will have constant issues with their finance until they seek the help they need to stop. That could be learning better budgeting behavior to identifying they have a gambling problem.
That could be a gambling impulse but really we know people that constantly spend their money carelessly regardless of some mental addiction. A lot of people lack of financial control shouldn't create laws to dictate to companies what they should do, especially in a market saturated with competition that don't deploy any of these practices simply because these people refuse to follow a monthly budget thats within their means.
We don't remove things from society just cause others have difficulty with it. Now I have no issue with more regulations especially targeted at kids, but let's be honest here. Most of this should still fall on parents and education. Companies caught pushing to sell these random loot-boxes to kids should be addressed and fined. Especially the ones that use streams that buy these boxes and open them with kids audiences. These companies that sponsored these streamers should receives fines for targeting kids. Also like to see some form of guarantee or odds exposure.
Long rant, but I find the fact you can't get monetary value back makes it extremely different than the current types of gambling and should effect the way we regulate it. End of the day, when no monetary value can be extracted we are regulating random chance and rewards...silly path to go down to call anything random and rewarding essentially gambling.
A quote from the report[0]:
> At present, the Gambling Commission states that purchasing loot boxes does not meet the regulatory definition of licensable gambling under the Gambling Act 2005 because the in-game items have no real-world monetary value outside the games.
They later reference this written evidence[1] that suggest that such legal framework is too tight and needs to be broadened.
[0] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcu...
[1] http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence....