Enlarge / The Belgian government says these kinds of randomized in-game cards are a form of gambling. EA is standing firm in its disagreement.
In the months since the Belgian Gaming Commission determined that certain video game loot boxes constituted illegal gambling, publishers like Blizzard, Valve, and Take-Two have removed loot boxes from their games in the country. Electronic Arts, though, has yet to remove the randomized items from its recent FIFA games, a decision which seems poised to set up a court fight.
Machine-translated reports from Belgium’s Niewsblad and Metro newspapers suggest that Belgian gaming commission has now referred the matter to the country’s public prosecutor’s office, which is conducting an investigation into it.
Any such prosecution would then go before a judge, which may be a legal battle EA is looking for. In a May conference call, EA CFO Andrew Wilson stated the company’s position that the loot boxes in FIFA are not a form of gambling. That’s “firstly because players always receive a specified number of items in each pack, and secondly we don’t provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items or virtual currency for real money,” Wilson said.
Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
