AKA, why Diablo Immortal didn’t make it to Belgium and the Netherlands
Diablo Immortal’s global release this week brought up mixed reviews from critics. Our Matt Sholtz was particularly incensed about how Activision Blizzard dressed up its arcane loot box system and mentioned that the company wouldn’t be releasing the game in Belgium and the Netherlands because of it. Now, we’re hearing about efforts to bring the legal axe down on loot boxes across Europe.
If you weren’t aware of why Blizzard excluded those markets from Diablo’s launch, the company did confirm to press outlets there (via Eurogamer) that its decision was related to “the current operating environment for games in those countries.”
Belgium’s Gaming Commission led a 2018 investigation targeting games such as Electronic Arts’s FIFA ’18 among others and found loot boxes to a form of illegal gambling. In the Netherlands, it was the same outcome, but through the courts: authorities went after EA over the loot box mechanism in the same game and the judiciary agreed that the company was in violation of gambling law. However, the company appealed and the nation’s highest court overturned that ruling earlier this year. What this ultimately means from the enforcement and marketplace perspectives is yet to be determined, but uncertainty remains for the time being.
That hasn’t stopped an effort spearheaded by Norway’s Consumer Council, however, from recommending legislative action against loot boxes from not just local and national levels, but from the European Union.
It published a paper (English PDF) detailing two case studies — one for FIFA ’22 and the other for Raid: Shadow Legends — where it says vulnerable audiences are targeted by flashy advertising, confusing currency conversions, misrepresentation of odds, and are ultimately presented with the dilemma of having to grind or pay to win. Legal frameworks, the paper suggests, need to span across as wide a geographical scope as possible and need to address game design guidelines for children.
The paper is co-sponsored by consumer associations in 18 other European countries including France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — the continent’s largest economies.
Considering how loot boxes generated an estimated $15 billion in revenues for publishers in 2020, there’s a lot of money at stake. Blizzard and its cohorts may have a larger counteroffensive in mind should the E.U. begin to organize around this effort. Some of the union’s existing consumer protection laws are being appraised and could be amended with proposals in 2024.
