2K Asks Fans to Write Belgium About Loot Box Law

With the recent passing of the Loot Box laws in Europe, companies have been slowly but surely bowing to regulation and updating their games. CS:GO players completely lost the ability to buy loot boxes, DOTA 2 players can see what’s in each box (but they can’t change it) before opening them, and Blizzard has removed the ability to buy loot boxes, forcing them to be earned in-game. But there was another developer affected by these Belgium laws: 2K, specifically NBA 2K’s in-game currency and the MyTeam packs.

2K has finally gone public with how they plan to accommodate these laws, which they detailed in a brief statement. In it, they basically say they’ve removed the ability to buy these packs with real-world money. Pretty standard stuff. But then they added this:

“The Belgium Gaming Commission (BGC) has stated that games which include certain ‘loot box’ style mechanics violate gambling laws in Belgium. While we disagree with this position, we are working to comply with the BGC’s current interpretation of these laws… We will be continuing conversations with the BGC in order to explain our view on how NBA 2K and MyTeam pack purchases already comply with local laws. If you agree, we recommend that you contact your local government representative to communicate your opinion.”

That, my friends, is a bold thing to do, to actually ask their customers to call and write their “local government representative” and defend 2K for their crappy, abusive business practices. Worse, I know there are a few people who would actually do that. Hopefully, however, those people are too lazy to follow up. I’ve stated before, on record, that I feel a bit sketchy about this whole thing, even though I do hate loot boxes, so while I wouldn’t go so far as to THANK Belgium, I really hope no one goes out of their way to help 2K resist this.

We’ll have to see how this develops.