Six political parties in the Netherlands have supported a ban on loot boxes in games

The Netherlands got involved in the fight against loot boxes a few years ago, but they still haven't finished it. It seems that the ban will be pushed through: six political parties have submitted a corresponding proposal.

Members of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands have published an appeal where they propose to ban loot boxes on the territory of the country. The following arguments are given:

• Kids are pushed into microtransactions, and loot boxes add a kind of gambling to the financial side of the issue.
• Transactions related to loot boxes can lead to unexpectedly high costs.
• Consumer protection associations of 18 European countries are asking for stronger regulation of loot boxes.
• The Netherlands Gambling Authority had already tried to tighten laws on loot boxes, but the country's Council of State ultimately rejected the proposal.
• Loot boxes are already banned in neighboring Belgium.

The signatories of the petition ask the House of Representatives to raise the issue of loot boxes again and ban them on the territory of the Netherlands.

The proposal must now pass the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, the six parties pushing the loot boxes account for 63% of all House members and 59% of the Senate seats, so it's likely that a majority vote will advance the proposal — it's only a matter of time.

It is not clear from the document of the House of Representatives what exactly the ban of loot boxes in the Netherlands will look like. One option is to prevent games with loot boxes from being sold to under-18s, but instead of verifying the age of the buyer, the developers will simply ban the purchase of loot boxes nationwide. At least this scenario is happening in Belgium. And partly in the Netherlands too: as early as 2018 Valve turned off the trade in items there  CS: GO  and  Dota 2.