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Belgian gambling commission goes to war on lootboxes, prison sentences possible

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The Belgian gambling commission has stepped up their efforts regarding lootboxes.  Makers of several games have been ordered to change their lootbox system.  Failure to do so may result in fines of up to 1.6 million EUR and prison sentences of up to 10 years. 

 

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Hot on the heels of the Netherlands declaring loot boxes are gambling and therefore illegal, Belgium has had its say.
The Belgian Gaming Commission looked at Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 18, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and found only Star Wars was not in violation of the country's gambling legislation - and that's only because EA stripped out the game's loot boxes after its launch debacle.
It determined FIFA 18, Overwatch and CS:GO's loot boxes are a game of chance and so are subject to Belgian gambling law. Battlefront 2, at the time the investigation was conducted, did not have loot boxes, so escapes unscathed.

 

Original source in Dutch : https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/04/25/kansspelcommissie-trekt-ten-strijde-tegen--verdoken-kansspelen--/

English source : https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-25-now-belgium-declares-loot-boxes-gambling-and-therefore-illegal

 

Here's a translation of my original source

 

 

The gambling commission has investigated 4 popular games at the request of justice Minister Koen Geens to see if there are any prohibited "games of chance" hidden in there.  The 4 games are Star Wars Battlefront 2, Overwatch, Fifa 18 and CS:GO.

The problem are the so-called lootboxes, a virtual box containing certain advantages that could help in the game.  These boxes can contain weapons, characters etc.  Players buying these boxes don't know ahead of time what's in them.


To speak of a game of chance, the gambling commission has 3 parameters.  There has to be a game element to it, there has to be a certain bet leading to a gain or a loss and there has to be a chance factor.
They concluded that 3 out of the 4 games are in violation with Belgium's gambling laws, only Star Wars battlefront did the necessary changes already.
So these are hidden games of chance and the players are not protected from those.  On top of that the players are mostly minors, which is extra problematic.

If the games aren't amended, the operators risk a hefty fine - up to 800.000 Euros - and a prison sentence up to 5 years.  If minors are involved, these penalties can even be doubled.

Peter Naessens, director of the gaming commission, said "Paid lootboxes are not an innocent part of videogames presenting themselves as a game of skill.  Players are seduced and deceived and no protective measures for gambling are applied."
Justice minister Geens states : "We have already taken numerous measures to protect minors and adults against the influence of, for example, gambling advertising, and we must therefore ensure that children and adults are not confronted with games of chance when they seek pleasure in a video game." He wants to enter into a dialogue with all parties involved.

 

 

Hopefully this wakes up the industry a bit.  If not, they'll probably drag some of these companies to court, get a judge to order some prison sentences and issue a couple of international arrest warrants.  That should get their attention for sure.

 

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That's a rather disturbing reliance on government for a personally non issue that is extremely easily avoided.

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2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's a rather disturbing reliance on government for a personally non issue that is extremely easily avoided.

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

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1 minute ago, Some Random Member said:

extremely rich people

I dunno.  I don't think spending a few bucks on loot boxes means you are extremely rich.  Maybe, not poor?

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its highly aggressive but for a good cause, these mircotransactions are designed with exploiting the same high an average casino player gets, but disguised as a regular video game

 

i support their actions on this subject and 8 weeks is a fair amount of time of revised the games to remove lootboxes

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Interesting. Sorry Belgium, I bet you're going to lose a lot of the titles you used to have access to.

 

9 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

Not true at all. I have lots of friends that buy loot boxes. I buy them sometimes myself.

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8 minutes ago, General Winter said:

its highly aggressive but for a good cause,

It's not a good cause. A good cause would be to try to teach the idiots that ruin their own lives some basic financial skills.

 

But instead, we allow these idiots to be idiots and punish the rest of society that has some competence.

Come Bloody Angel

Break off your chains

And look what I've found in the dirt.

 

Pale battered body

Seems she was struggling

Something is wrong with this world.

 

Fierce Bloody Angel

The blood is on your hands

Why did you come to this world?

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

The blood is on your hands.

 

The blood is on your hands!

 

Pyo.

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11 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

Or 3. people with ludomania (gambling addiction).

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Prison Sentencing Possible

Yeah that is a joke, a complete and utter joke.

 

Prison Sentencing Possible - For Littering

 

Its to scare the mis-informed.

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5 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

no, it is much more complex than that

 

there is a reason gambling is restricted to people 21 and up, gambling addiction is a very serious illness that some people are drastically more prone to getting than others; it is especially dangerous for minors who haven't or barely started earning money and falling victim to this disgusting scheme will have them mentally slaving more and more economically to varying extreme degrees and will drastically ruin a minor's financial investments

 

the reason its allowed for 21 and up is by that point you understand what your money is and (for that time) were very likely self sustained and in turn the joys of gambling could be had knowing that in the back of your head you have a solid "stop" in your head (that's my interpretation of that anyway)

 

the point being it is much more than kids with mommies credit card and stupid rich kids who use $100 bills as toilet paper and i hope you'll at least look at the subject in a different light

 

 

 

https://www.addictions.com/gambling/

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10 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

or 3: actual addicts... which is the worst option since it's corporations that knowingly take advantage of people that need real help.

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Lol what. Are they gonna extradite the entirety of EA to Belgium to serve a 10 year sentence?

 

Like I said in the past, all this kind of legislation will do is bar games from appearing in specific jurisdictions. It will have no effect outside that location.

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Until the entirety of the USA, Canada or EU follow suite, nothing will happen. The money that Belgium produces to these game companies isn't enough to make them do anything other than completely disable these portions of the games in that country. They can still sell the game in the country, making money and the revenue produces by other countries more than makes up for the slight loss from a few small countries. What happens is these countries get fucked by have no access at all to any cosmetics and other countries keep it.  
I hope it comes down to in the future of earning skins and buying them directly but it games with already thriving markets outside the games it is going to end very bad or very good. What stops Valve from charging $500 for an item like Dragon Lore? Or $100-$500 for a knife? Adding 50% onto skins you want with stat track? Games like Fortnite already make far more money than any of these games with loot boxes. It was shown that they make 1.6 million daily on iOS alone and this was 2 months ago with the game still growing. You could likely almost double that. I have friends who have dropped over $300 on Fortnite skins. But "because it's free" It's ok for them to charge $20-$30 for a set of items?  In games that you already bought it's going to be hard to convince the majority that charging more for 1 skin than the game you bought will be ok. In Rocket League, not many items are actually worth more than the game but they have paint finishes. Purple, Pink, Red, Blue, Yellow ect. White and Red for example are worth more, but it's unfair to charge more for red items because someone likes red. Someone who likes Yellow isn't going to care, what he wants is cheaper but the people who have items that are worth more because of the color would feel ripped off. Especially now with everyone having a chance to buy it, the items have to be the same price but you can never know with some of these companies.  
As for Overwatch, it would take them less than a week to solve the problem. After every levelup you get 4 random items. After 3 arcade wins you get 4 random items. Instead of buying 50 crates you can buy 10,000 of the currency. Or instead of 4 random items just give currency for performance and levelups. For Rocket League this system can't really be implemented as it would ruin competitive, turn people into ball chasers, sitting in net all the time or instead of hitting an easy goal, go for an unneeded pass because they might get more "Currency" for getting an assist + shot rather than a goal + shot.
 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Well the only people who buy lootcrates are 1. extremely rich people, or more alarmingly 2. little kids with their moms credit cards. So the problem is that little kids without the full understandement of money buy tons of those lootcrates, but then again, then it is the parents fault...

Far from true. Have a friend who buys them. I have friends who yes, use their parents money but they aren't spending hundreds of dollars on this stuff. The only kids with their parents credit cards sinking hundreds into loot crates are the same people who can ask their parents for a $1,500 PC without questions. At most I'd say the average amount underage kids spend are loot crates are less than $20-$40 every 2-4 weeks. Which, what makes that so much different from buy a new $60 game on console every 2-4 weeks? The same people who sink $300 into the yearly NBA, Madden, MLB, COD ect.

 

 

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Perhaps I should point out that gambling IS legal in belgium, but there are regulations in place to try and prevent people from getting addicted and to make sure minors aren't exposed to it (due to how easy it is for a child/teenager to get addicted to something).

 

These games do fall under the "gambling" banner due to their implementation of lootboxes. 

If the devs and publishers want to sell them in Belgium, they either need to follow the gambling regulations or adapt the game so that it doesn't need to fall under these regulations anymore. 

 

They could indeed just pull them from the shelves in Belgium, which is also fine with me TBH.  This is one of the few cases where the famous "think of the children" quote makes sense.

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23 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

It's not a good cause. A good cause would be to try to teach the idiots that ruin their own lives some basic financial skills.

 

But instead, we allow these idiots to be idiots and punish the rest of society that has some competence.

Good luck teaching kids that gambling is bad, there's a reason why you need to be 21 or older to enter a casino in belgium...

Not all kids are smart enough to realise gambling can ruin your life.

 

Also, gambling is regulated and you can put yourself on a sort of blacklist so you can no longer enter a casino, the same safety net doesn't exist for lootboxes.

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Just now, laminutederire said:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-25-now-belgium-declares-loot-boxes-gambling-and-therefore-illegal

An article in native english about it.

Sad thing is that the only game that wasn't considered illegal was SWB2... you do wonder how they conducted their investigation..

Only 4 games were investigated. And until bigger countries that have bigger player bases start doing this like Japan, UK, France, USA ect, a country like Belgium will have little to no effects on us.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

Sad thing is that the only game that wasn't considered illegal was SWB2... you do wonder how they conducted their investigation.

The investigation probably happened shortly after EA (IIRC temporarily, haven't followed the BF2 saga itself) stripped out the lootboxes, so the game was not in violation when they looked at it. 

 

 

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49 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:
Failure to do so may result in fines of up to 1.6 million EUR and prison sentences of up to 10 years. 

go ahead please, lock them up for 10 years.

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24 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

Until the entirety of the USA, Canada or EU follow suite, nothing will happen. -you need a TL:DR for the rest tbh-
 

The EU will likely follow for 2 reasons

1) The netherlands already came to a similar conclusion that lootboxes are bad

2) The brussels effect might happen. It has happend before with other things. Yes Belgium is small but that doesn't mean it can't have a big effect.

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