EU Commision Wants to Stop Virtual Currencies That Disguise Prices of In-Game Items

The European Commission has decided to ban virtual currencies in games in order to bring more transparency to the real costs of microtransactions. They have published new guidelines that publishers must follow going forward.

European Commission Bans Virtual Currencies in Games to Increase Transparency

The key points of the European Commission‘s action are as follows:

• clear and transparent pricing and pre-contractual information;
• avoiding practices hiding the costs of in-game digital content and services, as well as practices forcing consumers to purchase virtual currency;
• respect of consumers’ right of withdrawal;
• respecting consumer vulnerabilities, in particular when it comes to children;

For years, we have been used to in-game packs that can be bought for a certain amount of virtual credits, without knowing exactly how much they correspond to in real money. This is the issue the European Commission aims to regulate.

Interestingly, the Commission’s action started not with the usual loot boxes found in popular games, but with a free-to-play game with horses. This game is Star Stable, a Swedish MMO that became controversial for practices that consumer associations deemed to be highly unfair.

The game was accused of including advertisements aimed at children to push them into making microtransactions, using pressure techniques to encourage compulsive buying, lacking transparency about the real costs of in-game packages, and exploiting influencers without them disclosing the promotional nature of their content.

In other news, a survey conducted at Devcom 2024 found that nearly 90% of developers agreed that microtransactions should not be included in premium titles.