Two Nintendo mobile games will no longer be available in Belgium due to the country’s strict anti-loot boxes policy
Nintendo is pulling two of its most popular mobile titles in Belgium, fearing action from the country’s gambling regulator, the game publisher announced earlier this week. According to a statement on Nintendo’s official website, the Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp games will be removed from all app stores in Belgium on August 27.
After that date none of the two games will be available to download or play in Belgium. Belgian players were also informed that those of them who have Orbs or Leaf Tickets will be able to use them until the game is pulled from the app stores.
Nintendo’s statement further read that the company would refrain from releasing games with similar earning models in Belgium.
Nintendo’s decision to remove the two mobile games comes in a bid for the company to avoid regulatory action in Belgium. Last year, the country outlawed loot boxes, saying that these constituted illegal gambling as they represented a dangerous overlap between gaming and gambling.
Regulatory and Legal Action Against Loot Boxes
Loot boxes are consumable virtual items in video games that contain a random selection of objects, some of which can provide players with important advantage. The Belgian Gaming Commission launched an investigation into the nature of loot boxes, aiming to identify whether those constituted gambling.
The commission probed four popular video games. It found a number of issues with how loot boxes function, saying that the fact that the items can be purchased for real money and that they make players think they can gain advantage by purchasing them, although the contents of the boxes are random, makes them very similar to gambling activities and therefore dangerous as children are able to purchase them.
Game publishers that fail to comply with Belgium’s anti-loot box law face fines of up to €800,000 and up to five years in prison. Most of the world’s major game developers pledged compliance with the country’s policies against loot boxes and released versions of their games without the controversial items. There were also companies that decided to pull its games from the Belgian market altogether.
The loot boxes debate has heated up again in recent weeks, particularly after US Senator Josh Hawley introduced earlier this month a bill calling for a ban on loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions in “games played by minors.”
It also emerged last week that Sweden’s Minister for Public Administration Ardalan Shekarabi has tasked the country’s Consumer Agency with conducting a probe into the nature of loot boxes and whether these constitute gambling and should be regulated as a form of gambling.
Minister Shekarabi said earlier this month in an interview with local TV channel SVT that in his view loot boxes seem to be “very close to what is normally regulated by the legislation for paid gambling” as the possibility to trade the virtual items within the game or on secondary markets “arguably gives rise to supply and demand and therefor an objective monetary real-world value.”
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