2nd Miscellaneous Article

Ali, Jawad. “Belgium Has Declared Loot Boxes As Gambling And Will Impose Huge Fine With Five Years In Prison.” SegmentNext, 25 Apr. 2018, segmentnext.com/2018/04/25/belgium-lootboxes-gambling/.

I came across this article when I began searching for a real world reaction to the increasing problem of microtransactions. It all started with a Hawaii state representative Chris Lee discussing the predatory behavior of loot boxes and calling for action. This call for action was responded by some European countries including Belgium and the Netherlands. Netherlands had declared loot boxes as gambling and now will require a gambling license into order to implement them in that country. Belgium took a more hard-line route enforcing more penalties saying," Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for mental health’, says Geens. ‘We have already taken numerous measures to protect minors and adults against the influence of gambling advertising. Then we also have to make sure that they are not confronted with games of chance when they are looking for fun in a video game." These measure includes a fine up to 1.6 million Euros for different games that Belgium has found to have microtranscations which they now consider gambling by law (Overwatch, Fifa 18, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive). Another measure is the removal of these microtransactions from existing games within Belgium, a measure that a particularly gaming company has refused to comply with (more discussed on this in next entry). Places like Belgium are an increasing trend in this world that are beginning to address the problem of microtransactions. Its  sad that governments are having to step in and deal with the gaming industries problems but when companies refuse to self regulate themselves a change must occur and this change so happens to come from the government.