A Netherlands District Court this week ruled against Electronic Arts in a case over FIFA loot boxes, allowing the Netherlands Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, or Ksa) to proceed in fining the publisher €10 million for violating the country's Betting and Gaming Act.
"The Ksa believes it is crucial to shield vulnerable groups, such as minors, from exposure to gambling," the regulator explained. "For that reason, the Ksa supports a strict separation between gaming and gambling. Gamers are often young and therefore particularly susceptible to developing an addiction. As such, gambling elements have no place in games."
The Ksa informed developers in April of 2018 that it considered loot boxes violations of the Betting and Gaming Act, giving them eight weeks to make their games compliant.
The EA fine was originally imposed last October, but EA contested both the fine and the Ksa's desire to reveal them to the public. The three-judge panel ruled against the publisher on both fronts, permitting the Ksa to levy the maximum allowable fine of €5 million to Electronic Arts and a second maximum fine to Electronic Arts Swiss Sàrl, and to announce them as well.
According to the judgment, EA argued that FIFA loot boxes would not count as gambling under the Betting and Gaming Act because FIFA Ultimate Team packs (loot boxes) don't offer items of value because they cannot be directly converted into money, that FIFA is inherently a game of skill rather than chance, and that there is no scientific evidence linking the opening of Ultimate Team packs to gambling addiction.
The court was unswayed by those arguments, noting that there are ways for people to profit from Ultimate Team cards that can be valued at nearly €2,000, and that people can ignore the proper FIFA gameplay and "play" the Ultimate Team packs as their own sort of game.