Via the website of the Belgian Minister of Justice, Koen Geens (in Dutch): https://www.koengeens.be/news/2018/04/25/loot-boxen-in-drie-videogames-in-strijd-met-kansspelwetgeving

TL;DR translation:

1. In order for something to be a game of chance, the gambling committee uses four parameters: is there a game element, can a bet lead to profit or loss and is luck a factor in the game.
   
2. Only Star Wars Battlefront II, FIFA 18, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch were investigated. BF2 was cleared due to changes made at launch, the other 3 games are subject to gambling laws.
3. Because said 3 games violate gambling laws they have to be removed. If they aren't the operators risk a jail sentence of up to 5 years and a fine of €800.000. When minors are involved, those penalties can be doubled.
   

Yeah I saw this on the 1:00 pm news on the public TV channel here in Belgium (RTBF).
I was a bit surprised as we usually never hear about video games news on old fashioned TV networks. It was weird to hear them speak of loot boxes and how it is gambling and stuff.

Hopefully this expands to other places.

That's redundant, since the big AAA created the ESRB and are basically their board of directors.

With several countries of the EU working on it, it's quite possible this could be extended to all of the EU at a later point.

Let the dominoes fall.

Facebook moved 1.5 billion European users' data out of Europe to circumvent new European user privacy law. Any company can just move the operations/servers out of any country easily and give a giant middle finger.

These companies can just do the same and be free of this new rules, players can still play but they won't have local servers anymore or use a VPN at the worst case (region IP block).

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/19/facebook-moves-15bn-users-out-of-reach-of-new-european-privacy-law

HAhaha... the problem is, this isn't just 2 small countries, this will be the european union. This got all the track to be brought to the commission specifically to stop abuses.

Europe isn't the US buddy. Companies don't fuck us here, we fuck the companies.

If they want out, they are gonna have to go out of the whole EU market. That is a huge profit market impossible to ignore.

What can happen is the US keeps the scammy lootboxes but EU gets different game design. I am fine with that. The americans have to fight to defend their rights.

Even if they want to remove from the market, i assure you we are perfectly fine with that. It's more their loss than ours.

There's nothing sadder than businessmen who think they can evade the law. Any court of law will see that behaviour of atempting to evade the law as clear as day and take action.

At the end of the day, the services can just be permanently blocked by the governments. Don't think businessmen are smart. They aren't. They always get their due sooner or later.

Facebook is already out of reach of any EU law. Any company can give a middle finger to any contry and move to other that can provide better terms. This is why there is no manufacturing in US anymore, everything moved to China.

welp its fucked up more now, government never fixes shit. if they did, there would be no need for them or the 10 bureaucracies to fix the first failed one.

i dont like loo boxes but this is not for the government to regulate, i dont want them near anything I enjoy.