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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with gaming industry on protection for young people against loot boxes in video games.

Since publication of the government response to the call for evidence on loot boxes in video games in July 2022, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has facilitated engagement between the games industry and players, parents, government departments, independent bodies, regulators, academics and other external organisations. The output of this work was new industry-led guidance on loot boxes published by the industry trade body Ukie in July 2023, and a Video Games Research Framework published by DCMS in May 2023.

To support the development of industry-led guidance, DCMS convened a Technical Working Group with representatives of games companies and platforms. The Technical Working Group met eight times between September 2022 and June 2023, including a meeting chaired by the DCMS Secretary of State in June 2023.