Dutch government moves to ban loot boxes, says microtransactions manipulate children, loot boxes are a form of gambling and are addicting

poklane · Jul 1, 2022

Motion was submitted to the House of Representatives yesterday by members of the CDA, CU, VVD, SP, D66 and GL. Together these parties have 94 out of 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 44 out of 75 seats in the Senate.

Informatie- en communicatietechnologie (ICT) | Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

www.tweedekamer.nl

The House,

heard the deliberation

nothing that children in video games are manipulated to purchase microtransactions and that with so-called loot boxes there is also a form of gambling;

noting that these transactions are addicting and can impose unexpected bills for these transactions, with all applying disruptive effects;

noting that consumer associations from eighteen European countries together ask for regulation of these loot boxes;

noting that the Dutch Gambling Authority attempted to regulate these loot boxes, but that the Council of State ultimately did not to along with this;

noting that in Belgium these loot boxes are banned;

ask the cabinet to investigate the possibility to also ban these loot boxes in the Netherlands and where necessary change the law,

and proceeds to the order of the day.

Bontenbal
Ceder
Rajkowski
Leijten
Van Ginneken
Bouchallikh

It will still need to go through the House and Senate, but with members of all these parties backing this proposal it seems like it's only a matter of time until changes to the law are made to ban loot boxes in the Netherlands.

Deleted member 13798 · Jul 1, 2022

Good. Should be done.

Mung · Jul 1, 2022

Good. The dominos are falling.

TheRealTalker · Jul 1, 2022

Good. Hope others follow or make it harder for companies to implement.

AuthenticM · Jul 1, 2022

hell yeah let's go.

red731 · Jul 1, 2022

Here we gooo

ArkhamFantasy · Jul 1, 2022

EU/California where you at

Deleted member 3208 · Jul 1, 2022

Spain and Netherlands. Good. Hopefully more follow.

SolidSnakeUS · Jul 1, 2022

Good shit.

Can't wait for Blizzard to blame these countries as to why those people can't spend money on their products...

Pai Pai Master · Jul 1, 2022

Great news it's just a shame all these decisions are kinda coming too late, when much of the industry has moved on to the next form of emotional manipulation of their players - battle pass induced FOMO

EndlessSummer · Jul 1, 2022

Hope the EU follows.

RedAhmed · Jul 1, 2022

This could be the start of a domino effect happening. Belgium is already there, now other countries in the EU are (hopefully) following.
For now, most videogame companies will just not release a game with lootboxes and mtx if it's just a small amount of countries banning them, but they won't be able to ignore this when more and more countries ban them.

This is great news!

poklane · Jul 1, 2022

Henri Bontenbal, the primary submitter of this proposal, had a short interview with Gamer.nl about this:

CDA wil verbod op enkel betaalde lootboxen | Nieuws | Gamer.nl

Het CDA wil enkel een verbod op betaalde lootboxen in games. Dat zegt Tweede Kamerlid Henri Bontenbal in een interview met Gamer.nl

gamer.nl

Says it's only about paid loot boxes, says he's fine with unpaid loot boxes
"It's about children under social pressure buying things, with there being a business model behind that with developers building all sorts of tricks to stimulate that. That needs to stop"
"I want it banned for children, other ages I'm leaving up to the minister"

dglavimans · Jul 1, 2022

Seems like we (this country) has been working on this for a few years alteady…

As someone who spend way too much on Fifa lootboxes I hope it get through. Honestly my only addiction I ever had

Saladin · Jul 1, 2022

Hopefully the EU follows. This shit is getting out of hand with every new game. While it's nice that they're taking children in consideration, the adults are the biggest spenders.

Yuntu · Jul 1, 2022

Can someone from a country where its already banned tell me how you can still access those games? I assume if you have them installed they just keep working?

Because I don't wanna stop playing Genshin just because my government decides to make decisions for me.

Balmung421 · Jul 1, 2022

Good.

Keio · Jul 1, 2022

Yuntu said:
Can someone from a country where its already banned tell me how you can still access those games? I assume if you have them installed they just keep working?

Because I don't wanna stop playing Genshin just because my government decides to make decisions for me.

Sheesh, it's not a government making decisions for you anymore than a government banning cancer causing chemicals.

You can bet companies will find a better compromise in the regulated market, same as companies stopped using chemicals that cause cancer. You won't lose your Genshin.

Delusibeta · Jul 1, 2022

Yuntu said:
Can someone from a country where its already banned tell me how you can still access those games? I assume if you have them installed they just keep working?

Because I don't wanna stop playing Genshin just because my government decides to make decisions for me.

Depends on the developer. The simplest solution is to just ban all Dutch IPs.

RelaxItsJustMe · Jul 1, 2022

Yuntu said:
Can someone from a country where its already banned tell me how you can still access those games? I assume if you have them installed they just keep working?

Because I don't wanna stop playing Genshin just because my government decides to make decisions for me.

It depends. As someone from Belgium which has banned it. It's a complete toss up. I can play Genshin no problem for example. Nothing special and I can buy whatever I want. Something like Lost Ark is just removed from the Belgian Steam Store but if you get it gifted you can still play it. Some games are just pulled from the playstore/Apple store and would just need to be downloaded using a third party launcher like QooApp or ApkPure or Taptap. Some games just IP block you completely and you'd have to play with a VPN on.

Yuntu · Jul 1, 2022

Keio said:
Sheesh, it's not a government making decisions for you anymore than a government banning cancer causing chemicals.

You can bet companies will find a better compromise in the regulated market, same as companies stopped using chemicals that cause cancer. You won't lose your Genshin.

Imagine comparing video games to cancer.

RelaxItsJustMe said:
It depends. As someone from Belgium which has banned it. It's a complete toss up. I can play Genshin no problem for example. Nothing special and I can buy whatever I want. Something like Lost Ark is just removed from the Belgian Steam Store but if you get it gifted you can still play it. Some games are just pulled from the playstore/Apple store and would just need to be downloaded using a third party launcher like QooApp or ApkPure or Taptap. Some games just IP block you completely and you'd have to play with a VPN on.

Thanks for the info.

JuniperAndSage · Jul 1, 2022

Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

Cow Mengde · Jul 1, 2022

Good good. More of this needs to happen.

Moebius · Jul 1, 2022

Gambling boxes should be banned worldwide.

Crossing Eden · Jul 1, 2022

JuniperAndSage said:
Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

Honestly I don't think there's any inherent risk to banning loot boxes. What are companies like Blizzard gonna do? Form a lootbox blackmarket?

SPRidley · Jul 1, 2022

Linkark07 said:
Spain and Netherlands. Good. Hopefully more follow.

Also Spain?

ArkhamFantasy · Jul 1, 2022

JuniperAndSage said:
Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

Imagine the back alley lootbox dice rolls that are going to fund the mob!

Lagamorph · Jul 1, 2022

EA are going to run out of European countries where they just stop selling games rather than taking the lootboxes out.

Sleepingdragon · Jul 1, 2022

All this really does is make more games not release over here and make people have to go through hoops if they want to play those games instead.

ozumas · Jul 1, 2022

SPRidley said:
Also Spain?

More info: https://www.resetera.com/threads/sp...le-to-use-lootboxes-or-gacha-mecanics.602748/

Selphie · Jul 1, 2022

Sleepingdragon said:
All this really does is make more games not release over here and make people have to go through hoops if they want to play those games instead.

What you mean is, all this does is making less people get addicted to gambling, by making it harder to access.

evrythngwastakn · Jul 1, 2022

Good. While they're at it ban blind bags for toys too. That shit is gross.

Rosebud · Jul 1, 2022

JuniperAndSage said:
Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

In Brazil "traditional" gambling was banned and it didn't backfired

Cow Mengde · Jul 1, 2022

Selphie said:
What you mean is, all this does is making less people get addicted to gambling, by making it harder to access.

But don't you see, protecting kids from gambling is bad because... FREEDOM.

Qassim · Jul 1, 2022

JuniperAndSage said:
Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

Go on, we're listening to your particular concerns with this. Not vague statements that could apply to many different types of things and situations, what's your actual issue with this and how do you think it could backfire on those 'addicted'?

Kids getting their pay-for-lootboxes off dodgy criminals on the street? Injecting unsafe loot boxes into their veins? People going through a dangerous withdrawal from their loot box addiction?

Maybe you have something legitimate though, so I'm quite interested to hear it.

PinkCrayon · Jul 1, 2022

That's great and all, but loot boxes are largely on their way out aren't they? Outside of EA, most devs have been switching to straight microtransactions (or macrotransactions) and battle passes.

Atom · Jul 1, 2022

Yuntu said:
Can someone from a country where its already banned tell me how you can still access those games? I assume if you have them installed they just keep working?

Because I don't wanna stop playing Genshin just because my government decides to make decisions for me.

The target of your concerns should be the developer for using a predatory business model not the government for trying to protect its citizens. If the point is "well I can use it responsibly", unfortunately sometimes society has to have policies that protect the vulnerable at the expense of those who aren't.

As others have said it depends. If you're on steam, steamdb can give you an extensive breakdown of region locks and other purchase and gifting restrictions that developers might use per title.

Qassim said:
Go on, we're listening to your particular concerns with this. Not vague statements that could apply to many different types of things and situations, what's your actual issue with this and how do you think it could backfire?

Kids getting their pay-for-lootboxes off dodgy criminals on the street? Injecting unsafe loot boxes into their veins? People going through a dangerous withdrawal from their loot box addiction?

It's not worth engaging with that poster going off of their stuff from the diablo immortal thread. Some of the worst empathy and missing the point I've seen on this board in a while, like so:

JuniperAndSage said:
And yet, there's a whole OT full of posters enjoying it just like any other game, same as in the Genshin OT.

This is sensationalistic bullshit. Nobody is being 'tricked' into spending that much. We know from Apple that mobile players spend less than console and PC players- most spending nothing, a few percent spending hundreds a year, and a couple percent spending in the thousands per year.

The literal handful of people in the world who spend $100k on a mobile game are extreme outliers. This is like using record high retro cart auction prices to make generalizations about console gaming as a whole.

XSX · Jul 1, 2022

Don't see any downside here. Game doesn't release there? That's fine, there's a million other games or things kids can do. No loss.

Dreams-Visions · Jul 1, 2022

Excellent. Be less shitty, industry. That's all we ask.

Katmeister · Jul 1, 2022

JuniperAndSage said:
Banning stuff people are addicted to always works out great. Never backfires. Nope.

I think there's a big difference between banning loot boxes in video games and banning chemically addictive substances. People won't be going into shady parts of town to play Mob-Genshin Impact.

score01 · Jul 1, 2022

Good. Hope other countries follow suit.

Deleted member 2802 · Jul 1, 2022

Dreams-Visions said:
Excellent. Be less shitty, industry. That's all we ask.

It's just going to be replaced with something more expensive and potentially shittier because profits can't be reduced.
I think NFT's were supposed to be it, but those are most likely shelved for the time being.

Palas · Jul 1, 2022

Good. I hope countries make lootboxes their own thing juridically so it can get banned even in places where gambling is legal/regulated.

SPRidley · Jul 1, 2022

ozumas said:
More info: https://www.resetera.com/threads/sp...le-to-use-lootboxes-or-gacha-mecanics.602748/

Thanks!

Paroni · Jul 1, 2022

shira said:
It's just going to be replaced with something more expensive and potentially shittier because profits can't be reduced.
I think NFT's were supposed to be it, but those are most likely shelved for the time being.

It feels like the AAA industry has already moved on to timed MTX and battle passes and monetizing people's fear of missing out.

Falchion · Jul 2, 2022

I hope the US does it next. (We won't 😞)

NewErakid · Jul 2, 2022

RelaxItsJustMe said:
It depends. As someone from Belgium which has banned it. It's a complete toss up. I can play Genshin no problem for example. Nothing special and I can buy whatever I want. Something like Lost Ark is just removed from the Belgian Steam Store but if you get it gifted you can still play it. Some games are just pulled from the playstore/Apple store and would just need to be downloaded using a third party launcher like QooApp or ApkPure or Taptap. Some games just IP block you completely and you'd have to play with a VPN on.

Seems pretty pointless to ban it then.

Performative at best.

viandante · Jul 2, 2022

ArkhamFantasy said:
Imagine the back alley lootbox dice rolls that are going to fund the mob!

somebody is going to become a lootbox BOOTLEGGA

BBboy20 · Jul 2, 2022

Atom said:
It's not worth engaging with that poster going off of their stuff from the diablo immortal thread. Some of the worst empathy and missing the point I've seen on this board in a while, like so:

This is some kind of betrayalathon from someone who otherwise has great takes.

nikasun :D · Jul 2, 2022

Prepare for 150 dollar games.

Dutch government moves to ban loot boxes, says microtransactions manipulate children, loot boxes are a form of gambling and are addicting

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