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No: the EU has not imposed a blanket ban on loot boxes, in-game currencies or paid game items. Its current approach applies existing consumer-protection rules, issues guidance on fair practices and coordinates enforcement against specific companies. The focus is on whether players—especially children—can understand what they are paying, make an informed choice and avoid deceptive pressure.
What is the EU doing about game monetization?
The European Commission and national consumer authorities are using existing EU consumer rules to address practices in online games. Those rules can require clear price and product information, prohibit unfair commercial practices and restrict direct appeals to children. The Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network coordinates national authorities’ work across borders.
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That is different from passing a new law that outlaws a whole category of game features. The Commission’s 2025 virtual-currency principles describe minimum requirements and best practices under existing consumer law. Enforcement actions address particular companies and practices; they do not automatically establish that every similar feature in every game is unlawful.
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| Category | What it means for games |
|---|---|
| Existing consumer law | Information and fair-marketing duties already apply to digital content and services, including games. The Commission says paid loot boxes are subject to information obligations, and consumer rules address direct appeals to children. |
| Guidance | The CPC Network’s March 2025 principles explain minimum requirements and good practices for virtual currencies, including transparent prices, pre-contract information and withdrawal rights. |
| Enforcement | Authorities have raised concerns about named games and companies. These proceedings concern specific conduct and should not be presented as a general prohibition or, while ongoing, as final findings of liability. |
| Policy debate | The European Parliament’s 2023 resolution asked the Commission to assess whether consumer law was sufficient for loot boxes and in-game purchases and considered possible legislative options. The Commission’s 2024 review identified areas for improvement, but did not itself create a gaming-specific law. |
Are loot boxes illegal in the EU?
The official Commission materials described here do not establish a general EU ban on paid loot boxes. They instead explain how existing consumer rules apply. In its account of a September 2022 letter, the Commission said paid random-content purchases must meet information requirements under the Consumer Rights Directive and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, including information about price and main characteristics.
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The same account says a game should not be presented as “free” if it is not wholly free, and that businesses must not directly exhort children to buy paid add-ons such as loot boxes. Those are obligations concerning information and marketing; they are not a categorical prohibition on every paid random-content mechanic.
Which monetization tactics are under scrutiny?
The legal question depends on the practice and the circumstances. Making a real-money price hard to understand, using a countdown to rush a purchase, or directing a child to ask a parent to pay raise different questions. None is, by itself, proof that every game using a similar design has broken the law.
Virtual currency that obscures the real price
When players buy a bundle of virtual currency and spend it on an item, the currency can make the real-money cost less obvious. The CPC Network’s March 2025 principles call for clear, transparent prices and pre-contract information, and say consumers should not be forced to buy virtual currency to access digital content. They also emphasize respect for the right of withdrawal.
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The Commission’s 2024 staff working document found that 61.5% of observed cases involving in-game currency had a lower price per currency unit when consumers bought currency in bundles. That figure describes the cases observed in that study; it is not an estimate for all games, all purchases or all players. The document also recorded different ways of displaying prices and limited presentation of withdrawal information in its sample.
Urgency, repeated prompts and other dark patterns
EU consumer-facing guidance describes dark patterns as deceptive interface choices, including fake countdown timers, that can steer people toward purchases they do not want. It says consumer rules prohibit online interfaces designed to trick people into buying. The Commission’s 2024 staff working document reported examples in observed mobile games of nagging, fake urgency, social proof, confirmshaming, hidden information and potentially addictive design. These are sample observations, not prevalence figures for the whole game market.
Direct appeals to children and influencer promotions
Consumer rules prohibit traders from directly telling children to ask adults to buy products. The Commission’s account of the CPC Network’s Star Stable Online action says its March 2025 assessment identified direct advertising appeals urging children to buy in-game currency or items, or to persuade adults to buy them; time-limited purchase pressure; unclear information about buying and using currency; and influencer promotions without clear commercial disclosure.
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Those examples were concerns identified in an assessment, not a final liability decision. The company was invited to respond and propose commitments. Separately, EU consumer guidance says advertising, endorsements and paid content in games should be clearly marked.
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Information duties matter before a consumer commits to a purchase: the player needs to be able to understand the price and the main characteristics of what is being bought. Withdrawal information is also part of the CPC Network’s virtual-currency principles. In a newer, broader enforcement action, authorities are also examining concerns about consumer-data collection, parental-control defaults and unilateral account blocking—not only the presentation of purchases.
What is happening in the current enforcement cases?
Star Stable Online
In March 2025, the Commission described the CPC Network’s assessment of Star Stable Online and the concerns listed above, including child-directed appeals, time pressure, unclear currency information and undisclosed influencer promotions. The company was invited to respond and propose commitments. The Commission’s description therefore needs to be read as an enforcement process and assessment, not as a final ruling that the company violated the law.
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According to the Commission’s online-games page, updated 30 September 2026, the CPC Network began a coordinated action in early 2026 concerning Microsoft Corporation and Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty Mobile and Diablo Immortal. The action is ongoing. The concerns named include virtual-currency use and sales, consumer-data collection, addictive design, preselected parental-control settings, direct exhortations to children, missing pre-contract information and unilateral account blocking.
These are issues under scrutiny, not final findings of liability. The range of concerns also shows that consumer-protection scrutiny of games can reach beyond the checkout screen to design, data, parental controls and continued access to an account.
What does the EU evidence say about the scale of the problem?
The Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check, published in October 2024, concluded that the three consumer-law directives it reviewed remained relevant and necessary. It also identified harmful evolving practices and areas where further improvement was needed, including dark patterns, consistent application of consumer and digital rules, and more effective enforcement. The Commission said at the time that it would determine later what form any follow-up should take.
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The Commission’s staff working document also described examples in its observations of price presentation, withdrawal information, loot boxes or similar items in a subset of cases, and design practices in mobile games. Those findings should be understood within the report’s sample and scope—not as a claim that every game uses these tactics or that the observed proportions represent the EU market as a whole.
What should players and parents look for?
When deciding whether to buy something in a game, check whether the real-money cost and the item’s main characteristics are clear before purchase. If the game uses virtual currency, work out what the amount being spent represents in money rather than relying only on the in-game denomination. Treat a countdown, repeated prompt or social-pressure message as a reason to pause rather than a reason to buy quickly.
For children’s accounts, pay attention to purchase controls and whether the game’s messaging directly urges a child to buy or to persuade an adult. EU guidance also expects paid promotions, endorsements and advertising to be clearly marked. These checks can help identify pressure or missing information, but they do not by themselves determine whether a particular game or transaction violates the law.
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What might happen next?
The Commission’s 2024 review pointed to possible future improvements, while the European Parliament had already asked the Commission to assess whether the existing framework was sufficient for loot boxes and in-game purchases. Neither development, as described in the official materials, amounts to a new gaming-specific ban. The current picture is continued use of existing consumer law, guidance and case-by-case enforcement; future legislation remains a policy question rather than an enacted rule in these materials.
On 21 March 2025, Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael McGrath said: “It is crucial to ensure a safe online environment for consumers, particularly children, so they can enjoy gaming without facing unfair practices.”
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