The loot box/lottery/luck of the draw system for online games has existed for a while, and most of the time players have to figure out the odds of getting that amazing item on their own. Due to recently passed Chinese regulation involving online games, developers and publishers who sell to China, like Blizzard, with Overwatch, might find themselves having to divulge every bit of information on their loot boxes.
The law, which can be found on a Chinese government website in the original Chinese, states, loosely translated, “Online game publishers shall promptly publicly announce information about the name, property, content, quantity, and draw/forge probability of all virtual items and services that can be drawn/forge on the official website or a dedicated draw probability webpage of the game. The information on draw probability shall be true and effective.”
This means that games involved in the Chinese market, like Overwatch, will be forced to have information on items on the website, including what kinds of items, the probability that they’ll drop, the amount that will be given away, and the properties of every item.
The law also states that records will need to be kept for government inquiry of items dropped, with certain steps being taken to ensure player privacy.
Whether or not this law will actually effect the North American market isn’t clear, as Korean games in the past have just changed their loot boxes per region, getting around any predictability for their boxes. However, if we do see changes in online games here due to this, it could lead to increased transparency between developers and players when it comes to the luck of the draw.