Belgium says loot boxes are gambling, wants them banned in Europe

[Nautilus]

GribbleGrunger said:

SecondWar said:

Because it's passable when the initial game is free - people get that the developer has to get their money from somewhere. But most people take issue when its tacked onto full-priced console games, as its a sneaky way to boost margins.

Naa, you're thinking about your own motives for disliking it. I'm talking about their motives for disliking it because they apply to phone games too:

 "The mixing of money and addiction is gambling," the Gaming Commission declared. Belgium's Minister of Justice Koen Geens also weighed in, saying, "Mixing gambling and gaming, especially at a young age, is dangerous for the mental health of the child." 

And there have been numerous stories over the years of children costing parents hundreds of dollars/pounds because of mobile game transactions. So why now? 

Because its getting more proeminent.Hardly a popular decision(for better or worse, lootboxes are very popular now) that does something wrong blows in the companys face at the early stages.Its just when it starts to get out of control, like now(and specially with a really famous brand like Star Wars), that people with the ability to do actually something about the subject(in another words, not gamers) start to pay attention.Mark my words, lootboxes as they are right now is going to dissapear or developers will dial it way down in a few years.