You can look up a game’s age rating in about ten seconds, and it’ll tell you roughly what you’d expect: how much violence is in it, whether there’s bad language, how scary it gets. That’s genuinely useful, and I’m not going to rehash it here, because the rating already does that job.

What the rating mostly won’t tell you is the thing I’d actually pay attention to as someone who makes games: how the game is built to get money out of your child. That part is largely invisible on the label, and it’s the part worth learning to read. So this is the checklist I’d give a parent, aimed squarely at the stuff a rating skips.

First, a confession: I changed my mind

I’ll be honest about where I’ve landed, because I used to think the opposite.

For a long time I was completely against kids being able to spend any money inside a game. All of it, no exceptions, the whole idea felt wrong to me. I’ve since softened, and I think the softening is right.

Here’s what shifted. Buying a known thing for a known price is just a purchase. If a kid spends a bit to get a better tower in a tower-defence game, or a costume they like, they know exactly what they’re getting, they pay once, and the money goes to a developer who spent years building something that child loves. That’s not predatory. That’s how good games stay funded, and how the people making them get to carry on. I don’t think we should treat that as a sin.

So I no longer think the problem is spending money. The problem is something more specific.

The line that actually matters: buying versus spinning

The thing that changed for me was realising the harm was never in the spending. It’s in spending on a chance.

There’s a world of difference between paying for a specific item you can see, and paying to open a box that might contain it. The first is a purchase. The second is a slot machine. You hand over your money, something spins, and you get… maybe the thing you wanted, maybe not. And if not, well, another go might do it.

These mechanics have lots of names, loot boxes, crates, card packs, gacha pulls, prize wheels, mystery chests, but they’re all the same shape underneath: you’re paying for a spin, not for a thing. That’s the line. Known thing for a known price, fine. Paying for a roll of the dice, not fine, especially for a child.

Why this matters more than it sounds

This isn’t just my opinion. The research keeps landing in the same place: the more young people spend on these random-chance purchases, the more likely they are to show signs of problem gambling. It’s been found in adults, and in a study of 16 to 18 year olds the link was moderate to large.

I’ll be straight about the limits of that, because it matters: the research is correlational, so it can’t prove the loot boxes cause the gambling problems rather than the other way round. But the link turns up again and again across different studies, and some researchers argue these mechanics may actually be more dangerous than ordinary gambling, precisely because children can legally access them inside games they already play. And it’s not rare: the UK Gambling Commission estimates that around a third of children aged 11 to 16 have opened a loot box in the past year.

The reason it works on kids is the same reason a slot machine works on adults. The “maybe” pulls harder than the “yes.” A box that might hold the thing you want is more compelling than simply buying the thing, and that pull is engineered, not accidental.

Why even decent developers end up doing it

I want to be fair here, because it would be easy to cast every studio as a villain, and that isn’t what’s going on.

Most developers aren’t plotting how to fleece your child. These mechanics spread because they worked, and because everyone copied everyone. Once loot boxes funded a few enormous games, they quietly became the default, the assumed way to make a “free” game pay for itself. A small studio just trying to survive looks at what’s normal in the industry and adopts it, often without thinking hard about the nine-year-old at the other end.

The result is a lot of harm done without much malice. That doesn’t make it harmless. But it does mean the useful response is awareness rather than outrage, knowing how to spot it, rather than assuming bad intent.

What the age rating does and doesn’t tell you

Here’s the practical gap to understand.

The age number on a game has historically been about content, violence, fear, language, and generally hasn’t taken these spending mechanics into account at all. Which means a game built around a spinning-wheel money sink could happily carry a rating that says it’s suitable for young children.

There is a separate little notice, “In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items),” that’s meant to flag exactly this. It covers loot boxes, gacha, card packs, prize wheels and the rest. Two honest problems with leaning on it, though: it’s voluntary rather than law, and studies have found plenty of games that should carry it simply don’t (one found that around 71% of loot-box games on one major store weren’t labelled). On top of that, surveys suggest most parents have never even heard the term “loot box,” so a label built around that idea assumes knowledge a lot of us were never given.

One piece of genuinely useful, recent news if you’re in the UK or Europe: as of 2026, PEGI (the rating system used here) has started automatically giving games with paid random items a PEGI 16 rating. So going forward, a surprisingly high age rating on an otherwise gentle-looking game can itself be a hint that it leans on this stuff. The North American system (ESRB) has decided not to follow, so for now it’s a UK and Europe thing, but here, it’s a signal worth noticing.

The actual checklist

So here’s what I look at, as someone who builds these things. It’s less about ticking boxes and more about learning to recognise a shape.

Reassuring signs (green flags):

  • You can see exactly what you’re buying before you buy it. A named item, a costume, a level pack. Known thing, known price.
  • A single one-off purchase unlocks the game or removes ads, with nothing dangled afterwards.
  • Purchases are cosmetic only: they change how things look, not how powerful your kid is.
  • The game is genuinely fun for a child who never spends a penny.

Be wary (red flags):

  • Anything where you pay for a chance: loot boxes, crates, “mystery” packs, card packs, prize wheels, spins.
  • An in-game currency you top up with real money. That extra layer (five pounds becomes 500 “gems” becomes who-knows-what) exists largely to blur how much is actually being spent.
  • Timer or “energy” systems that stop play unless you wait or pay. They’re built to nag.
  • Countdowns and “limited time” offers aimed at children. Urgency is a pressure tactic.
  • A game that’s clearly less fun unless you spend. That’s pay-to-win wearing an “optional” badge.

And a few gut-check questions, because the worst stuff hides in how a game makes you feel, not in a spec:

  • When your kid can’t play, are they just disappointed, or genuinely anxious and pestery? The second suggests the game is doing something to them, not merely entertaining them.
  • Does the game always seem to dangle one more thing just out of reach that you could pay to close? Designed money sinks always have a next thing.
  • After a session, is your child basically settled, or wound up and on edge? Wanting to come back to a great game is completely normal (I still go back to games I bought once, simply because they’re brilliant). The worry isn’t the enthusiasm, it’s the agitation: a kid who seems irritable, anxious, or unable to wind down is being wound up, not just entertained.
  • Picture the game after you’ve paid for it once, and only the game itself. Does it give your kid the full fun on its own, or does it feel deliberately incomplete until you keep spending? Paying once for a game is fine, and paying later for a proper expansion (essentially a whole new slab of game) is fair too: that’s how good developers keep going. The warning sign is the opposite, a base game that feels hollow or naggy on purpose, built to drip-feed you into spending again and again.
  • Honestly: is the game using your kid to put pressure on you to keep buying?

The short version

None of this means games are bad, or that letting your kid spend is wrong. A child buying something they love, at a clear price, in a game they love, is completely fine, and worth supporting. The studios making those games deserve to be paid.

The skill is just telling the difference between a shop and a casino. A shop shows you the price and gives you the thing. A casino takes your money and spins. Once you can see which one you’re looking at, you can decide with your eyes open.

For what it’s worth, that’s the one line I hold myself to as a developer: a kid should always know exactly what they’re getting for their money. If a mechanic only works because the child doesn’t know, that’s the line, and it shouldn’t be crossed.

Sources

If you’d like to check any of this for yourself: