US publishing giant Electronic Arts is being fined €5m ($5.86m) by the Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA).
In a post on the organisation’s website, it wrote that the company has been violating local law by selling loot boxes for its FIFA football titles. In 2018, this business model was classified as gambling in some video games in the Netherlands as they were not in compliance with local law.
“The KSA believes it is crucial to shield vulnerable groups, such as minors, from exposure to gambling,” the organisation’s chair René Jansen said.
“For that reason, the KSA supports a strict separation between gaming and gambling. Gamers are often young and therefore particularly susceptible to developing an addiction. As such, gambling elements have no place in games.”
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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor
Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.
