Belgium decides video game loot boxes are illegal gambling

[EvilCycle]

Is this any different to Overwatch, which has been included in the review?

That is my exact point, it isn't any different, psyonix are just as guilty with their rocket league crates and yet nobody ever mentions them.

[chrestomanci]

... I've played several games where you 'pay to speed things up', you know what you're paying for and while paying to unlock a 'loot box' might be a grey area, paying to get an exact item quicker isn't going to be an issue...

I don't think there is a problem paying to speed things up, so long as the process is transparent and there are no games of chance involved.

For example, suppose in some fantasy game it takes about 3 months of grinding to level up to be able to make a magic sword of doom, or for wealthy and impatient players, you can buy one at any time by paying 10,000 gold coins, and you buy chests of 800 gold coins using £19.99 of real money, then it is easy for anyone to work out that the magic sword will cost about £250. We can read that fact in forums, reviews and the like, and decide if the game as a whole is worth installing based on that and other costs of playing.

If on the other hand, the main way to get that magic sword is via loot boxes that cost 10 gold each, then we have no idea what the likely cost of the sword or anything else is. The game publishers rarely tell us what the probability of any item is in a loot box and even if they did there is no way to know if they are telling the truth. There is no Vegas Gaming regulator to enforce that the rules of chance are fair and what they should be. Even if there was, few adults, let alone children know enough about probability and statistics to estimate the likely minimum and maximum number of plays to get a particular item. (I don't).

[DeViLzzz]

Glad this happened. That is all I got to say on the matter.