The last few months have seen a lot of people questioning whether microtransactions and loot boxes in video games amount to gambling, and Star Wars Battlefront II has been at the centre of a storm that is sure to affect the whole games industry. Last month, the ESRB and PEGI game rating bodies passed the buck to law makers and the UK government responded by saying they would monitor the situation during a five minute recess from bickering about Brexit, but now the Belgians are getting involved.
VTM News reported that the Belgian Gambling Commission is opening an investigation into Star Wars Battlefront II in particular, but also other games such as Overwatch to determine whether they constitute gambling.
The problem in the opinion of commission director Peter Naessens is that you firstly don’t know what you’re buying, and this may then affect how well you can play the game. “If there is a game of chance,” he said, “it is not possible without a permit from the Gaming Commission.”
While unlikely, the worst case would see EA forced to pay a substantial fine and remove the game from sale. However, previous rulings have dismissed the classification of gambling for loot box and microtransactions in video games because you are never at risk of walking away with nothing, there is always some kind of in-game reward, no matter how insignificant it may be.
Game publishers can be damned crafty when skirting gambling regulations, such as Overwatch’s dodge in China, where you buy regular in-game currency that can purchase cosmetic items directly, but then just so happen to receive loot boxes as a “gift”. However, Chinese regulations also require that publishers make publicly available the odds for receiving certain items by random chance.
ron_mcphatty
It just occurred to me that along with a lot of us Disney must be fuming, the affection for the Star Wars and Disney brands could be badly affected by an association with gambling.
Have any countries deemed loot boxes to be gambling yet?
Stefan L
China. Maybe not directly, but enough that Blizzard had to find a barmy workaround to make it work.
ron_mcphatty
Good for them! Although I can’t imagine many countries governments looking to them for moral inspiration. It really is insidious to combine pay-to-win with chance but hopefully the backlash will help draw some sort of a moral line in the sand.
Starman
Publishers have taken the piss with the amount of random box crap this year and it’s well overdue that they were forced to tone them down. It’s even worse than day 1 dlc like Evolve got hammered for because you can’t even just buy the items you want.