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Six Dutch political parties say loot boxes should be banned

Six Dutch political parties say loot boxes should be banned

It sure looks like loot boxes are going to be banned entirely in the Netherlands in the near future.

That's going by a motion submitted by six of the country's political parties – posted to ResetEra and translated by user Poklane and reported by VGC – has called upon a full ban on the business model in the country.

The motion claims that "children are manipulated into making microtransactions" in video games and saying that look boxes are a "form of gambling".

In order for this to become law, it needs to get through the House of Representatives before being debated in the Senate.

Given that the legislation is backed by six of the country's political parties, it seems unlikely to fail; these politicians form 94 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 44 of the 75 seats in the Senate.

In 2018, the Netherlands Gambling Authority deemed that some video game loot boxes were classed as gambling. The organisation tried to fine EA $5.86 million over FIFA loot boxes in 2020, before the decision was overturned by the Dutch Administrative Jurisdiction Division.


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.