Loot Boxes Made Illegal in Belgium as Found to Fall Under Gambling Laws

Started by Xevross, Apr 25, 2018, 02:39 PM

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Xevross

Now Belgium declares loot boxes gambling and therefore illegal • Eurogamer.net


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The Belgian Gaming Commission looked at Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and found only Star Wars was not in violation of the country's gambling legislation - and that's only because EA stripped out the game's loot boxes after its launch debacle.

It determined FIFA 18, Overwatch and CS:GO's loot boxes are a game of chance and therefore subject to Belgian gaming law. Battlefront 2, at the time the investigation was conducted, did not have loot boxes, so escapes unscathed.

A statement from Minister of Justice Koen Geens said FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive were therefore illegal and demanded their loot boxes removed. If they're not, the publishers "risk a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to 800,000 euros". When minors are involved, those punishments can be doubled, Greens added.


Belgium expressed a particular concern about the impact loot boxes have on young people. "It is often children who come into contact with such systems and we cannot allow that," Geens warned.

In fact, Geens requested the Belgian Gaming Commission investigated video game loot boxes after the Star Wars blow up. "Given the importance of the protection of minors and vulnerable players, this was very worrying," he said.

Xevross

This is much bigger than The Netherlands, since they directly call out games as examples and say that they are illegal. If those three are illegal, so are the vast majority of loot boxes in the industry. Lets hope other Countries follow suit.

Legend

This is much bigger than The Netherlands, since they directly call out games as examples and say that they are illegal. If those three are illegal, so are the vast majority of loot boxes in the industry. Lets hope other Countries follow suit.
The Netherlands was going to give the devs till June to fix it themselves before being called out by name, but yeah this is way more direct.

Loot boxes might actually be dying. At the very least it's two separate countries agreeing on the issue and it won't be a Germany type situation where it's just a single location with unique rules.

the-pi-guy

Kinda crazy.

BananaKing

Awesome. Let's hope this continues.

fudge you EA lol. It's fantastic in a way how that game brought all this shame up.

DD_Bwest

this is so awesome

its neat how it was battlefront  2 that finally broke the camels back