Twenty-two European consumer associations, including UFC-Que Choisir and CLCV (Consumption, Housing and Living Environment) in France, announced on Thursday 12 September that they were filing a complaint with the European Commission against seven video game publishers due to commercial practices “unfair”. The targets are industry leaders, each associated with one of their flagship titles: Epic Games (Fortnite), Supercell (Clash of Clans), Electronic Arts (EA Sports FC 24), Activision Blizzard (Diablo IV), Mojang Studios (Minecraft), Roblox Corporation (Roblox) and Ubisoft (Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege).
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The plaintiffs accuse them of deceiving players by requiring them to use virtual currencies when they want to make purchases in their favorite games, to customize a character or speed up their progress for example. This practice is particularly widespread in mobile phone gaming to monetize products that are mainly offered for free to download, what is called the “freemium” model.
For UFC-Que choisir, this mechanism has no other objective than to “to make forget [aux joueurs] that the money they spend is real”His Swiss counterpart mentions “predatory practices”.
Spend more and more
In support of their complaint, the associations point out that these means of payment – specific to each game – can only be purchased in packs. For example, a game will offer five coins for 2 euros, ten coins for 3 euros or twenty coins for 4 euros. This has the effect of preventing a fixed value from being assigned to these “currencies” and encouraging people to spend more and more.
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The associations point out that very often in the game, when making a purchase, the prices are only expressed in virtual currency, not in euros, which is contrary to the principle of price transparency. Finally, in a press release, they denounce the fact that very often the user is forced to top up his virtual wallet beyond the price of the desired good.
To convince Brussels to act, the promoters of this approach cite the need to protect a vulnerable population, that of children, who are keen on video games but are not very aware of the financial issues. Even if in the “freemium” model, “in-app” purchases generally constitute microtransactions – when console games can exceed 80 euros – this model is one of the most profitable. In 2023, mobile gaming represented 49% of the revenues of the video game industry sector (90 billion dollars, or 81.5 billion euros), far ahead of its PC and console competitors.
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