Austrian court says FIFA loot boxes must be labelled as gambling products

The court’s decision comes after players sued Sony.

Austria.- An Austrian court has ruled that FIFA loot boxes are a form of gambling and must be labelled appropriately. It found that because the contents of a loot box are determined by chance and are worth more or less than what a player paid, the mechanism violates Austrian gambling laws.

The decision comes after a group of Austrian players, including one minor, sued Sony after spending hundreds of euros on the FIFA Ultimate Team card packs. It’s not clear why they sued Sony as the platform provider rather than the publisher EA, but the court has ordered Sony to refund €338.26.

Sony can appeal against the decision, but the court’s ruling would mean that FIFA Ultimate Team packs have to be classified as gambling games that require a licence. Presumably, the precedent would mean the same has to apply to other games and that they would no longer be able to be sold to minors.

There’s been no suggestion that Austria will follow Belgium and the Netherlands in banning the mechanism completely, which led EA to pull the product from those countries. EA, which describes loot boxes as “surprise mechanics”, has not yet responded and nor has Sony.

Richard Eibl, managing director of the litigation financier Padronus said the verdict was a “bang for the entire video game industry”. He told Games Wirtschaft: “Of course, the final result remains to be seen, as the proceedings will probably go up the courts, but Sony and several other gaming groups should dress warmly from now on.”

At the start of this year, in neighbouring Germany, the video game age rating agency Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle began to include the use of loot boxes in its evaluations. As of January 1, whether a game has loot boxes will be included in deciding a game’s age rating.

A higher age rating may be applied if a product is found to have the potential to “promote gambling, contribute to a desensitisation towards gambling losses or give rise to unrealistic product expectations”.

See also: GambleAware adds voice to call for loot box legislation in UK