Loot Boxes Could Be Worth $20 Billion By 2025, Germany Moves To Add Age Restrictions

Lootboxes will be worth $20 billion by 2025, according to a report compiled by research firm Juniper.

The report (found here), suggests that the business model will see a 5% increase year-on-year.

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Loot Boxes Could Be Worth $20 Billion By 2025, Germany Moves To Add Age Restrictions

For context, 2020 saw $15 billion spent on loot boxes, despite the ongoing calls for the "blind pack" purchase model to be banned or modified.

“Loot boxes in their traditional form are often considered exploitative; leading to increased legislative scrutiny,” Nick Hunt, co-author of the report explained.

“We expect to see game publishers react to this in future by changing loot box formats, in order to keep them compelling and outside the legal realms of gambling.”

Of course, loot boxes come in many shapes and forms, but EA remains arguably the publisher with the most "skin in the game".

FIFA 21's Ultimate Team had 6 million daily active players in December, according to the company's financial results.

In fact, in Q3 of FY2020, the company received $951 million for "live services and other", eclipsing the $722 million received for full games released.

That's despite widespread backlash of loot boxes when Star Wars: Battlefront 2 launched in 2017.

Still, according to Der Spiegel (via Eurogamer), calls are growing to make games that contain loot boxes carry an 18+ rating as part of a "Youth Protection Act".

The idea is to protect children from “gambling-like mechanisms”.

Whether or not this comes to pass or not is one thing, but it's clear that loot boxes remain popular among players given the money they bring in.