Last year, the Benelux countries banned the release of Diablo Immortals in their countries because of loot boxes and the omnipresence (the word is weak) of microtransactions. In July 2022, it was the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in the United Kingdom which tackled this thorny but crucial file across the Channel. Today, it is the European Parliament that is taking up the subject to advance the legislation and the rules in force.
The EU wants to protect players more against manufacturers’ techniques
This Wednesday, a large majority of MEPs voted in Strasbourg in favor of a report from the EU’s Internal Market Committee. This report would propose concrete measures to better regulate the practices of loot boxes and pay-to-win vis-à-vis players, who are often young and easy for brands to influence.
Indeed, data from the European Parliament tells us that half of Europeans aged 6 to 64 play video games, 73% of children aged 6 to 10 play them and this figure rises to 84% for adolescents aged from 11 to 14 years old.
For the EU, manufacturers should provide information on the contents offered for sale, the mechanisms of loot boxes and the dangers associated with them. Parents and child protection agencies should also be more vigilant according to the EU, in particular by controlling the time spent on video games and the money invested in them by children.
For Andreas Schwab (CDU), EPP Group Spokesperson for Internal Market Policy, “pay-to-win is a practice that risks putting children and young people into debt for the sole purpose of succeeding in a game. »
His counterpart from the SPD, René Repasi is on the same wavelength since according to him, “practices such as loot boxes should be subject to European regulations on games of chance. »
It is clear that the establishment of clearer regulations aimed at protecting children and impressionable players would make it possible to avoid excesses and the endangerment of certain players. The mechanisms of loot boxes, on certain games at least, become really unhealthy and have nothing to envy to games of chance and their excesses.
It remains to be seen how the European Commission will juggle this subject knowing that the Parliament has also recognized the importance of the video game industry in Europe and its major growth. This sector employs more than 90,000 people in Europe and the Parliament has even proposed the creation of a European prize for online video games in order to promote the sector.
