CONSIDERAÇÕES ACERCA DA PRESENÇA DE CAIXA DE RECOMPENSAS EM JOGOS ELETRÔNICOS NO BRASIL

Abstract

The Rewards Boxes, better-known as "loot box", come showing up often on the news, either because of the amount of money that game developers make with this practice, or because of gamer's criticism, who say this would be gambling. After the infamous release of Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), this practice it’s been stated that this system was exploited and, from that case, several scientific studies in the area of psychology were made, which it’s been established that Loot Boxes exploit the same mechanisms as the practice of gambling, starting from this instance, a race between governments to regulate Loot Boxes or to categorize it as gambling. For this reason, the legal repercussions of the Brazilian legal system will be analyzed. The methodology used in this monograph is the descriptive research, which uses bibliographic review and document analysis with a qualitative approach as a data collection technique. As the relationship between player and developer/publisher has a consumerist character, possible offenses to the consumers basic rights were analyzed, described at art. 6º of CDC, which had been stated as offenses on subparagraph I, III and IV. Analyzing the Children and Adolescent Statute, it was possible to establish that this document does not have the desired effectiveness because the gambling characteristic in Loot Boxes would need to be recognized for the application of art. 80 of ECA. Lastly, it was possible to categorize the Loot box as gambling, according to the decree law 3.688/41 (Criminal Misdemeanors Act), art. 50, §3°.