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Belgium Declares Video Game Loot Boxes Gambling and Therefore Illegal (arstechnica.com)
The Belgian Gaming Commission has reviewed several big video games and found that randomized loot boxes in at least three of the titles count as "games of chance," and publishers could therefore be subject to fines and prison sentences under the country's gaming legislation. Ars Technica reports: A statement by Belgian Minister of Justice Koen Geens (machine translation) identifies loot boxes in Overwatch, FIFA 18, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive as meeting the criteria for that "game of chance" definition: i.e., "there is a game element [where] a bet can lead to profit or loss and chance has a role in the game." The Commission also looked at Star Wars: Battlefront II and determined that the recent changes EA made to the game means it "no longer technically forms a game of chance." Beyond that simple definition, the Gaming Commission expressed concern over games that draw in players with an "emotional profit forecast" of randomized goods, where players "buy an advantage with real money without knowing what benefit it would be." The fact that these games don't disclose the odds of receiving specific in-game items is also worrisome, the Commission said. The three games noted above must remove their loot boxes or be in criminal violation of the country's gaming legislation, Geens writes. That law carries penalties of up to 800,000EU (~$973,680) and five years in prison, which can be doubled if "minors are involved." But Geens says he wants to start a "dialogue" with loot box providers to "see who should take responsibility where."
As much as this clearly rubs "MUH LIBERTY" the wrong way, this WILL result in less money being squandered. The kids (at least) playing these games are not likely to turn to the race track or casino to scratch a gambling itch. It actually is just about the games.
The Belgian government is actually elected, and in fact, enjoys a much better electoral system than say the United States where your authoritarian tyrant had fewer votes than his opponents, and his petty sycophants were often elected in rigged districts that make the entire process suspect, even aside from their own blandishments that millions of "illegal" voters exist which would make their own election suspect.
Of course, Trump and his ilk are quite dedicated to controlling peoples lives as well, notice how they want to implement systems to bar those they don't like from the country, control people's daily lives, and as I learned from my Congressman's recent video town hall, they want to violently compel people to go along with their agenda. Even to the point of threatening representatives from other districts.
everything here is a voluntary interaction and anybody who doesn't like it can stop playing.
If that were true, we wouldn't need to regulate gambling at all.
The whole loot-box thing started because gamers were beginning to complain and boycotting games. Politicians had nothing to do with that, they are just reacting to those complains now. And depending on how exactly the gambling laws are written, those games were already illegal to begin with, the law just wasn't enforced properly.