Developers must now list loot box odds to customers on the App Store

Loot boxes have been on the tips of all gamers' tongues at some point over the last couple of months, and Apple has adjusted its own App Store guidelines for the better.

Since EA came under fire earlier this year with Star Wars: Battlefront II, loot boxes have been very much frowned upon for the simple fact that the odds tend not to be in the buyer's favour. Though, this was console so didn't affect the mobile world much, right? Wrong.

When these loot box-like products called Ultimate Hero Chests arrived in Marvel Future Fight, the community was having none of it. IAPs certainly aren't uncommon, but offering up some of the game's strongest characters in these boxes is another thing.

One of the interesting things I noted back when we covered this topic earlier this month is that rather than being able to buy a character outright, the Ultimate Hero Chest is a total gamble. You could get your desired hero in the first swing, or you could spend £1,000 on chests and still not get it.

Though it's only a small step in the right direction, Apple's updated App Store guidelines in section 3.1.1 states: "Apps offering “loot boxes” or other mechanisms that provide randomized virtual items for purchase must disclose the odds of receiving each type of item to customers prior to purchase."

Whether this'll make developers less likely to include such things in their games, we can't be sure, but it does at least show that it's not something that'll just be ignored in the grand scheme of things.