This story is, obviously, blowing up right now, but it looks like PC Gamer gets first post:
Last week, Belgium's Gaming Commission announced that it had launched an investigation into whether the loot boxes available for purchase in games like Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront 2 constitute a form of gambling. Today, VTM News reported that the ruling is in, and the answer is yes.
The Google translation is a little sloppy, as usual, but the message is clear enough. "The mixing of money and addiction is gambling," the Gaming Commission declared. Belgium's Minister of Justice Koen Geens also weighed in, saying, "Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child."
Geens, according to the report, wants to ban in-game purchases outright (correction: if you don't know exactly what you're purchasing), and not just in Belgium: He said the process will take time, "because we have to go to Europe. We will certainly try to ban it.GamingBolt has another great post on this development:
Folks, we won. After Belgium confirmed last week that it would be investigating charges of unregulated gambling in popular video games such as Overwatch, thanks to the Star Wars Battlefront 2 controversy, they have come out with their decision- loot boxes are indeed gambling, they say, and they will move to have them banned in the European Union.
This is fantastic news for multiple reasons- if loot boxes are illegal in Europe, then publishers will have two options- either develop two versions of their games (one with loot boxes, one without), or forego a release in Europe (therefore, half the market for most western publishers) entirely. Therefore, unless publishers literally want to spend the money on balancing and QAing two progression paths for their games, they will have no chance but to remove loot boxes from their titles- if this regulation passes.
That, "folks, we won," at the start of GamingBolt's post may turn out to be the most important part of this story. This really is a case of consumers banding together, and staying together, to generate sustained public pressure and bring about change, in a gaming community that has famously been unable to do any of those things until five minutes ago. Gamers have finally realized that they have the power in this relationship, and can force the big AAA publishers to back down on issues that really matter to them, and this is unlikely to be the last time it happens, either.
Nor is Belgium going to be the only jurisdiction that weighs in on this. This part of the story is also getting a lot of coverage, but PC Invasion looks to have gotten out of the gate first:
The loot box debate rages on and it’s been taken up by the state of Hawaii which held a press conference addressing Star Wars Battlefront 2 today.
Democrat representative Chris Lee took to the podium specifically singling out Star Wars Battlefront 2 which he described as an “online casino specifically designed to lure kids into spending money.” He brilliantly added, “It’s a trap!”
Lee said they needed to “protect kids who are underage, not psychologically or emotionally mature enough to be able to gamble which is why gambling is prohibited under 21.” He mentioned that they would look at legislation to prohibit the sale of these games to anyone who is underage as well as “prohibiting different kinds of mechanisms in those games”.
I'm beginning to think that EA may have badly overplayed their loot box hand with SWBF2. What's more, it's starting to look like EA agree, since they're walking back their loot box bullshit in other recent releases, too. As reported by GameRant:Lee was also joined by State Representative Sean Quinlan. Quinlan said that Star Wars Battlefront 2 has the most popular IP in the world attached to it and it’s marketed squarely as children. He added, “we shouldn’t allow Star Wars to encourage your kids to gamble.”
EA temporarily removed microtransactions from Star Wars Battlefront 2 as fans voiced their frustrations at the game’s business model. But the Star Wars shooter is not the only EA game to undergo a major overhaul in that department, as the developer behind Need for Speed Payback has now announced big changes, too.
In a post on Reddit, Need for Speed Payback developer Ghost Games says that it has been looking at in-game data and feedback from players in order to alter the game’s progression system. The progression system, which includes stat-boosting Speed Cards and loot boxes, is now undergoing [...] an overhaul.
[...] Need for Speed Payback representative F8RGE states that the progression system is not being tweaked as a direct result of the Star Wars Battlefront 2 backlash. “All this was already happening,” says the developer, responding to a fan who suggested that EA doesn’t want the fallout of the Battlefront 2 controversy to affect its other games with microtransactions.
However, while Ghost Games says that this was not done as a direct result of the Star Wars Battlefront 2 brouhaha, that doesn’t mean that Need for Speed Payback didn’t experience its own backlash. When the open-world racing gaming was first released earlier this month, many reviews criticized the game for its business model. Fans and critics complained, saying that it was incredibly difficult to progress in the game without grinding or spending money.With legislators and regulators circling, sales of SWBF2, and EA's share price dropping as a direct result of their loot box blundering, gamers are apparently planning more action against EA's gacha-laden games, as reported by Critical Hit:
EA is not having a good month. On top of the unfolding Star Wars: Battlefront II loot box brouhaha and a quick about-turn on Need For Speed’s very similar system of grinding for progress, it looks like FIFA 18 players also have a bone to pick with the publisher. Fans of the footie sim have long been annoyed with the Weekend League in FIFA 18, a torturous commitment to earning sweet digital prizes that requires a silly amount of time to be invested in the mode according to US Gamer.
Around a week ago, redditer “TheShearerComplex” started a campaign subreddit to boycott any Black Friday sales that EA would unveil for the in-game currency of FIFA Points, so that EA could be sent a message. It all boils down to the requirements for this mode: Players need to play 40 matches over two days, which at 20 minutes per match works out to around 13 hours spent.
[...]
The current campaign to boycott the sale of FIFA Coins on Black Friday might have some legs to stand on. The subreddit currently has over 5400 upvotes, and plenty of comments from frustrated fans. While the simple solution would be to simply not play that mode, the Eurogamer report shows that it’s not that easy. Weekend League is structured in a way that provides the best rewards for your risks, something that the FIFA addict simply can’t afford to pass up thanks to the high payout of in-game currency and player packs.It looks like this story really has legs, with developments coming almost too fast to keep track of them all, and almost all of the news is good for videogame consumers and for the overall health of the videogame industry, even if it's not so good for EA in the near term. I've said repeatedly on this blog that I hate to see bad behaviour rewarded with success; the fact that EA's bad behaviour had reaped a reward of poor game sales, dropping share prices, terrible PR, a growing rebellion among the player populations of their games, and a rapidly spreading international movement to regulate their abusive business practices, all gives me a warm, happy feeling.
It really does feel like a tipping point for the videogame industry, and not the one that AAA publishers wanted. I just hope that gamers continue to bring the pressure, wielding the power that they've always had but not really realized they had until this moment.
#PowerToThePlayers