It seems now the intention is to make the ban explicit: producing specialist legislation to deal with loot boxes directly, rather than simply re-interpreting existing gambling legislation to include them.
In essence, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division disagreed with the Netherland's Gaming Authority interpretation that such loot boxes fell within the country's national gambling laws, which upended the effective ban on the practice this "gambling" interpretation had created. This escalation is being seen partially as a response to the latest ruling from the Netherlands Appeals Court in relation to Electronic Arts, which, in 2019, had been fined €10M after refusing to modify certain games containing loot boxes to comply with the country's gambling laws but which the company was ultimately successful in overturning on appeal. For although in most cases loot boxes are a form of "microtransaction" (a transaction in which each individual payment is relatively small), it is an open secret that these can quickly add up to a very serious expense for the user (and a considerable source of income for game developers).Īs such, the Motion calls on the government to consider an outright ban on loot boxes in videogames altogether. The Motion from the Netherlands, for example, describes children as being "manipulated into micro-transactions" which are "addictive" and can "burden families with unexpected bills for these transactions, with disruptive consequences". However, both are unequivocal in their condemnation of the current loot box landscape. Whilst we await the final text of the Dutch proposed legislation and the final Spanish legislation, details of precisely what these amendments will entail are limited. Only a few weeks later, we already began to see EU countries adopting diverse national responses to these recommendations: with the filing of a motion in the Netherlands (" the Motion", available in Dutch only) from six political parties and now the publication of a Spanish Draft Law (“ the Proposals", only available in Spanish) that considers an outright ban on loot boxes. What is ultimately inside the loot box is up to the game developer, and loot boxes are used by developers to increase overall session time and user engagement. Part of the appeal of loot boxes is that they contain one or more random digital rewards (for example, a special customization option for the player's character, or a weapon) which may be rare or something of value.
Simply put, "loot boxes" are "mystery reward packages" that players can purchase using real or in-game currency. Back in June, we analysed the report published by the Norwegian Consumer Council (" NCC") which criticised the use of "loot boxes" in videogames and advocated for significantly tighter regulation or indeed an outright ban on paid loot boxes (see our article here).
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