A leaked draft of the EU’s Digital Fairness Act suggests the new legislation would stop games from selling loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics to minors, and switch off paid-for virtual currencies for under-18s unless a parent approves.
The alleged draft was first published by European outlet Contexte and has been reported on by Video Games Industry Memo, ahead of the European Commission’s planned reveal of the proposal tomorrow (November 11).
An unofficial copy of the full text is also online, though it notes it may differ from what the Commission publishes.
Under Article 14, any game that sells a virtual currency would have to show the real-money value of items bought with it, and when a game is aimed at minors, paid-for virtual currencies would need to be “disabled by default” and could only be turned on with a parent or guardian’s approval.
Article 15 states that companies “shall not offer paid-for variable reward systems to minors”, and Article 16 does the same for “pay-to-progress and pay-to-win mechanisms”. For everyone else, games with loot boxes would have to show the probability of getting each item, and give players tools to disable them altogether.
The rules for minors kick in when a company is “aware with reasonable certainty” that a player is under 18. According to the draft’s recitals, a game could count as being aimed at minors if it carries an age rating suitable for under-18s, and a game’s PEGI rating can be used as evidence of that. Minors would also be considered a significant part of a game’s audience if they make up at least 25% of it.
Article 10 also bans interfaces “likely to deceive or manipulate consumers”, with a list of banned practices the Commission could update over time. Article 17 targets features that “encourage compulsive or excessive use”, and would require companies to let players switch them off.
Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen warned last year that tightening the rules on in-game currencies could “deliver a critical blow” to the European games business and would “cripple the industry and fail to protect players.” The European Games Developer Federation backed him at the time, saying: “In-game currencies play a central role in free-to-play mobile games.”
