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Legislators in Hawaii were among the first to express concern over the use of loot boxes in video games when Star Wars Battlefront II was in the news. This issue didn’t fade away, though. Lawmakers have introduced several bills designed to clamp down on the use of randomized loot crates in games, which are compared with gambling in the legislation.

Loot crates have been featured in games for years, but Electronic Arts’ particularly rapacious version in Star Wars Battlefront II kicked off a firestorm on the internet. As the release of Battlefront II approached, beta testers complained that too many items were locked up inside the random loot crates, and many of those items could change the gameplay. This left players with little choice but to drop cash in hopes of getting the items they needed. EA also stuck hero characters behind the loot crate paywall — the only alternative was to grind for up to 40 hours just to unlock a character.

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