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By Mike Williams
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Belgium Concludes that Loot Boxes are Gambling, Will Try and Ban Them in Europe
Belgium's Gaming Commission has reached a conclusion on loot boxes.
News
by
Matt Kim,
11/21/2017.
Belgium's Gaming Commission announced last week that the body would be investigating whether or not loot boxes in games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Overwatch could be considered a form of gambling. Well the investigation appears to have reached a conclusion. According to VTM News the Commission has ruled yes, loot boxes are a form of gambling.
According to a Google translation (via PCGamer), "The mixing of money and addiction is gambling," said Belgium's Gaming Commission. Belgium's Minister of Justice Koen Geens added that "Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child."
Apparently Geens wants to ban in-game purchases like loot boxes in both Belgium and abroad. He explained that while Belgian officials will have to go to Europe to enforce their findings, the Belgian government "will certainly try to ban it."
This is a dramatic ruling in Belgium, and potentially Europe, but we'll have to find out how this affects the rest of the world.
There has been a huge uproar about unfair loot practices featured in recent video game release, particularly Triple-A games. Star Wars Battlefront 2 in particular suffered a huge controversy where gamers accused EA of promoting unfair loot practices in the game. As a result, EA temporarily removed loot boxes from the game, explaining that the company will revisit loot boxes after finding a better "balance."
This story is developing and we will update this post with any new revelations.
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Comments 11
EA's just the first big-name western publisher to be brazen enough to try it in a full-priced, high-profile retail game.
Dota 2 and Overwatch both tweaked their utility because of this. Dota's chests have about 8-10 cosmetic sets for the game's 100+ heroes, and each time you buy one you'll get one you haven't gotten already until you eventually collect them all. In this regard, it's a similar principle to a Happy Meal toy: you don't know what the restaurant is going to give you, but if you get something you had before you can ask for a different one. Unless you already have everything the shop has, in which case you'll get some ice cream (or credits to buy another cosmetic, or the right to sell it on Steam Marketplace, or whatever.)
In Overwatch's case, the game now gives you stuff you haven't had before, it doesn't weaponize duplicates as a No-Prize with poor return, which is important if you're going to judge these things for actual monetary worth.
I will preface that I live in a city steeped in gambling, so I wince at this meme that they are the same thing as Video Poker, but really this doesn't meet my definition of the word any more than buying a Bag O' Crap from Woot! does. Or throwing money at the Cards Against Humanity holiday promotion which is presently promising some undefined yet politically-relevant gifts. Or buying a LootCrate. These are all moments in life where someone sells something by saying, "hey, make this purchase and get a thing! It might be cool!"
The key thing to understand about boxes and crates, going back to Dota and it's 100+ heroes, is that they do allow there to be a market for cosmetic for less-than-popular heroes. If you allowed people to just buy whatever cosmetics they like off a menu, a lot of lesser-played characters would have thin selections while certain heroes (ones that look badass or are widely thought of as sexy) would have too many.Edited November 2017 by UnskippableCutscene