Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following further breaches of the Advertising Standards Authority codes on publicising the availability of loot boxes by members of the DCMS technical working group on loot boxes, what steps they will take to ensure that the codes and their oversight are strengthened.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) are responsible for setting and enforcing the UK Advertising Codes and are independent of the government.

The ASA takes firm action to ban adverts for loot boxes that are in breach of their codes and has published comprehensive guidance for advertisers of in-game purchasing. The ASA is assessing the nature and scale of ads that fail to inform the audience of in-game purchasing, and considering further action through individual investigations or enforcement activity conducted by CAP Compliance teams.

We are committed to ensuring that purchases of loot boxes should not be available to children and young people unless and until they are enabled by a parent or guardian; and that all players should have access to and be aware of spending controls and transparent information to support safe and responsible gaming.

In July 2023, the previous Government agreed to new industry-led guidance produced by a DCMS-convened Technical Working Group (TWG) of video game developers ; a 12 month implementation period ended in July 2024. The TWG is preparing a report on industry implementation of the measures, which we urge all video games companies to adopt in full. We are separately commissioning independent academic research to assess the effectiveness of the new guidance in improving player protections and will consider whether further action is required when this research is complete.