{"id":43036,"date":"2018-08-27T21:36:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T21:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/325326"},"modified":"2018-08-27T21:36:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T21:36:00","slug":"blizzard-removes-paid-loot-boxes-and-loot-chests-for-players-in-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/blizzard-removes-paid-loot-boxes-and-loot-chests-for-players-in-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"Blizzard removes paid loot boxes and loot chests for players in Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blizzard announced that it&#8217;s\u00a0removing paid loot boxes\u00a0and chests from\u00a0<em>Overwatch<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Heroes of the Storm<\/em>\u00a0players in Belgium following the aftermath from\u00a0European loot box rulings held this past weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Belgian Gaming Commission declared loot boxes illegal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/317014\/Belgian_Gaming_Commission_declares_loot_boxes_illegal.php\">back in April<\/a> after deciding that titles like\u00a0<em>Overwatch<\/em> (among others) violated Belgium&#8217;s gambling regulations, citing them as &#8220;games of chance,&#8221; and\u00a0 therefore illegal under current regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While we at Blizzard were surprised by this conclusion and do not share the same opinion, we have decided to comply with their interpretation of Belgian law,&#8221; Blizzard said in a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/eu.forums.blizzard.com\/en\/overwatch\/t\/paid-loot-boxes-and-loot-chests-disabled-for-players-in-belgium\/8139\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a result, we have no choice but to implement measures that will prevent <em>Overwatch<\/em> and <em>Heroes of the Storm<\/em> players located in Belgium from purchasing in-game loot boxes and loot chests with real money and gems.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The post goes on to note that Belgian players will still be able to earn loot boxes by playing the games\u00a0and they\u2019ll still have access to all in-game content, despite\u00a0not being able to purchase them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While there&#8217;s no specific date for when paid loot boxes will be removed, Blizzard said it would happen &#8220;shortly.&#8221; The company also noted\u00a0that it&#8217;s open to discuss the matter further with the appropriate authorities, leaving a possibility\u00a0paid loot boxes could return in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blizzard announced that it&#8217;s\u00a0removing paid loot boxes\u00a0and chests from\u00a0Overwatch\u00a0and\u00a0Heroes of the Storm\u00a0players in Belgium following the aftermath from\u00a0European loot box rulings held this past weekend.\u00a0 The Belgian Gaming Commission declared loot boxes illegal back in April after deciding that titles like\u00a0Overwatch (among others) violated Belgium&#8217;s gambling regulations, citing them as &#8220;games of chance,&#8221; and\u00a0 therefore [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}