The EU has opened action against ten video game companies, including Activision Blizzard, Riot Games and Ubisoft, over how they sell and price in-game currencies, according to Kotaku. The EU video game currency crackdown also names Mojang, Crytek, Supercell, InnoGames, King, Plarium and Playrix, and it is being spearheaded by the Italian Competition Authority.
The action centers on a monetization system that has been part of gaming for more than a decade: selling players virtual currency instead of letting them pay real money directly for in-game items.
What Happened In The EU Video Game Currency Crackdown
According to Kotaku, the EU’s complaint focuses on how these ten publishers price items in virtual units rather than in euros, which makes it hard for players to know exactly how much real money they are spending. Companies typically sell virtual currency in fixed bundles that do not line up evenly with what items actually cost, so players are often left holding small leftover balances they cannot spend on anything.
That forces another purchase just to use up the remainder, a pattern regulators have flagged as a way to push players toward spending more than they intended.
The EU also pointed to a broader set of design issues tied to these games, including so-called dark patterns, weak parental controls and little to no help for players when their accounts get blocked, Kotaku reported.
What It Means For Fans
For players, the practice under scrutiny is one most have run into without necessarily naming it. Buying a bundle of virtual coins or gems, then finding that an item costs just enough to leave a few coins stranded, is a familiar experience across live-service and mobile titles alike.
Kotaku specifically called out Call of Duty as an example of a game still using this kind of currency system without the fixes regulators are asking for.
Epic Games has already moved on the issue. The company announced it will let players spend exact amounts of V-Bucks on specific purchases starting this month, according to Kotaku, though that change does not yet extend to PlayStation.
Background On The Scrutiny
The focus on virtual currency pricing is not new to regulators watching the game industry. Total Apex Entertainment previously covered earlier scrutiny of how publishers structure in-game currency systems.
The companies named this time span some of the industry’s biggest names in premium, free-to-play and mobile gaming, from Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty franchise to Supercell and Playrix’s mobile hits, suggesting regulators see the currency-bundling model as an industry-wide habit rather than one company’s choice.
What’s Next
The sources do not detail a compliance deadline or specific penalties the ten companies could face. Epic’s move to allow exact V-Bucks spending, minus the current PlayStation exception, stands as the clearest example so far of a company adjusting its system in response to this kind of pressure.
Players watching how Activision Blizzard, Riot Games and Ubisoft respond can expect the next signal to come from any official statements those companies or the European Commission issue addressing the specific changes demanded.
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