2017 was the year that microtransactions, loot boxes and other egregious business models common to gaming finally came to the attention of the mainstream. The debacle that surrounded the launch of Star Wars: Battlefront II finally dragged this matter into the limelight and subsequently put in on the radar of various global, legislative and regulatory bodies. The genie is now well and truly out of the bottle and it’s now a question of waiting to see what happens next. I suspect that the EU may likely be one of the first regions to tackle the issue and that it may well be the mobile game industry that is first to fall upon its sword. If there’s a change in government in the UK, then there is scope for matter to be tackled here. There is already a strong lobby against current gambling legislation and it doesn’t take much of an imagination to envisage a tabloid led campaign against the iniquities of smartphone game addiction and it’s pay-to-win culture. Then there’s the issue of virtual items resold for real money via auction websites and the question of whether loot boxes are or are not gambling. Apples recent statement about games publicly declaring the odds of winning in advance, shows that the world is indeed slowly turning against this business model.