Photo Credit: Evgeniy Kondratiev
The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) and 22 of its member organizations from 17 countries have filed a complaint with the European Commission over deceptive practices in video games.
The complaint targets games made by Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Mojang Studios, Roblox Corporation, Supercell & Ubisoft—but the practices targeted in the report are a widespread phenomenon across the gaming industry. The report alleges that popular games like Fortnite, Roblox, EA Sports FC 24, Minecraft, and others are engaging in harmful and deceptive practices.
Particularly, the BEUC outlines that these companies are using misleading tactics that do not comply with the EU rules on unfair commercial practices. The BEUC report says since gamers cannot see the real cost of digital items in games that use in-game currency, it leads to overspending. It also highlights that gamers do not prefer the use of in-game currency and that these companies often force consumers to waive their rights when purchasing in-game currencies.
The BEUC is seeking a coordinated enforcement action to ensure full price transparency of premium in-game currencies while curbing the use of ‘unfair terms’ when using them. It also seeks to have in-game purchases deactivated by default, rather than available immediately.
“Game companies know that children and teenagers are massively playing their games. Therefore, companies should be required to better protect young gamers as a matter of professional diligence. This could be done by requiring them to deactivate by default in-game purchases. Enabling in-game purchases should be a deliberate choice made by consumers,” the report reads.
In-game purchases have become a significant source of revenue for the gaming industry, generating more than $50 billion dollars in 2020 and representing about 25% of the revenues collected by the gaming industry. That’s heavily driven by purchases in free-to-play video games like Fortnite and Roblox, with Fortnite earning an estimated $2 million per day on in-game transactions. A review of the 50 most-played video games in 2023 found that 21 of them (42%) contained premium in-game currencies. Out of those 21 games, 8 of them had a PEGI rating of 12 or younger.
“In-game purchases made with premium in-game currency benefit from the full range of rights foreseen under the EU consumer law. A parallel should be drawn with other sectors where representations of value are also used to make payments. This is the case of air travel contracts concluded with miles or tokens used at festivals,” the report continues.
It also highlights how gaming companies choose to sell their in-game currency as problematic. All of the games mentioned feature currency bundling. For example, the cheapest Roblox currency (RBUX) bundle you can buy is 400 RBUX, while items sold in Roblox may cost 500 RBUX or more.
If Roblox and Epic Games are forced by the European Commission to change how they offer microtransactions to consumers, it could drastically alter how these services are interacted with in the future. The proposition that in-game purchases be turned off by default is something that no game with premium in-game currency does at the moment—it behooves companies to turn players into customers as soon as possible. Roblox in particular would be impacted by this decision as 42% of its estimated 265 million player base is under the age of 13.
