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European lawmakers will study a ban on 'loot boxes' and addictive features in video games
(www.euractiv.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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They won't do it, and here's why: AAA will lobby for the continuation because it will hurt their bottom line of that gets banned. They love to implement dark patterns galore, and modern games will certainly do that.
Don't be surprised if this fails, as it will likely be more consumerism, considering the fact that the USD and bond bubble just burst recently.
Loot boxes and microtransactions made me hate playing videogames.
Even the benign psychological manipulation away from just starting a game and enjoying it that is achievements is annoying
Yeah. I think part of it is just that I’ve grown out of them. But part of it is enshittification.
Your tastes may change and you might have changed as a person as you aged but there's nothing to "grow out of". Games aren't inherently childish. Certain ones can be, but games as a whole aren't
Luckily for you, there's more games without any loot boxes or micro transactions than you can play in your lifetime.
Some European countries have banned them already. Belgium and the Netherlands as an example.
There are still loot boxes in Belgium, they just work differently. You get to see what is inside before you start the transaction, allowing a person to only open the ones with contents they want.
That's good news, but will the EU make it law for the entirety of it? I'd say no, but this is for sure promising. Us Americans need to get clocked for our dark pattern usage.
The EU is one of the few institutions that will stand up to large companies. Not quickly and not enough but they have