Thus far, the fight to regulate video game loot boxes has been a piecemeal effort moving forward in very different ways in different jurisdictions. Today, though, an international group of regulators from 15 European regulation bodies and Washington state in the US signed a declaration stating their increasing concern "with the risks being posed by the blurring of lines between gambling and other forms of digital entertainment such as video gaming."

The declaration identifies four specific areas of concern:

The declaration says that the types of games and services listed above have "similar characteristics to those that led our respective legal frameworks and authorities to provide for the regulation of online gambling." But the signatories don't commit to any specific actions against such games for now, beyond "working together to thoroughly analyze the characteristics of video games and social gaming." The declaration also notes that there are different frameworks for gambling regulation in different countries.

The regulators also hope to "enable an informed dialogue with the video games and social gaming industries," and say they "anticipate that it will be in the interest of these companies whose platforms or games are prompting concern, to engage with [gambling] regulatory authorities to develop possible solutions." This could be a veiled reference to Electronic Arts, which was recently referred to Belgium's public prosecutor for failing to heed that country's loot box regulations.

The declaration is notable for its international reach, encompassing European countries with a population of greater than 278 million people or about 54 percent of the entire European Union population. The UK's involvement is particularly notable, considering a 2017 position paper in which the country's Gambling Commission determined loot boxes were not a form of gambling if those in-game items could not be traded back for real-world currency.

“We have joined forces to call on video games companies to address the clear public concern around the risks gambling and some video games can pose to children," UK Gambling Commission Chief Executive Neil McArthur said in a statement. "We encourage video games companies to work with their gambling regulators and take action now to address those concerns to make sure that consumers, and particularly children, are protected.”

The signatories to the declaration are: