Key Takeaways
- A leaked 71-page draft of the European Union’s Digital Fairness Act could introduce significant restrictions on video game monetisation.
- The proposal would prohibit paid loot boxes, pay-to-win, and pay-to-progress mechanics for minors.
- Paid virtual currencies would be disabled by default for minors unless a parent or guardian provides approval.
- All players could receive the option to disable offers involving random rewards, with clearer disclosures of real-world prices and loot box probabilities.
- The proposed legislation also targets addictive game design, misleading influencer marketing, dark patterns, and unfair subscription practices.
- The Digital Fairness Act is not law yet and must go through the EU legislative process before any proposed restrictions can take effect.
Video game publishers could be facing some significant changes to how they sell games in Europe. A leaked draft of the European Union’s upcoming Digital Fairness Act has revealed proposals that could place new restrictions on loot boxes, virtual currencies, pay-to-win mechanics, and other monetisation systems commonly found in modern games.
The document, reportedly obtained and published by French publication Contexte, surfaced ahead of the European Commission’s expected presentation of the proposal on November 11, 2026. While the legislation covers several areas of the digital economy, its proposed rules for video games could have a particularly noticeable impact on publishers relying heavily on in-game purchases.
Among the most significant proposals are restrictions on paid random rewards for minors, parental approval requirements for purchasing virtual currencies, and the ability for all consumers to disable certain loot box offers. The draft also calls for greater transparency around the real-world cost of digital purchases.
Importantly, these are proposed measures rather than regulations that developers must immediately follow. The legislation still needs to pass through the European Union’s legislative process, and its final wording could change before becoming law.
EU Digital Fairness Act Draft Could Change How Games Use Loot Boxes
One of the biggest talking points surrounding the leaked Digital Fairness Act is its proposed approach to loot boxes and other uncertainty-based reward systems.
These mechanics are common throughout modern gaming, particularly in free-to-play titles and live-service releases. Players typically spend real money or virtual currency in exchange for rewards selected randomly, meaning they don’t know exactly what they will receive before making a purchase.
The leaked draft proposes much stricter rules for these systems. Paid-for variable reward systems, including loot boxes, would not be available to minors. At the same time, all consumers would have the ability to switch off offers involving uncertainty-based rewards.
The proposal also addresses transparency. Publishers would be required to clearly communicate the probabilities of obtaining specific rewards from paid random offers, allowing players to understand what their money is actually buying.
This could be particularly significant for games that sell card packs, character pulls, weapon skins, and other randomly generated digital items.
Think about how many modern games encourage players to repeatedly purchase random rewards in the hope of obtaining a particularly rare character or item. Under the proposed rules, developers would face considerably more restrictions when offering these systems to younger players, while adult consumers would gain additional control over whether they see such offers.
The distinction matters because the proposal doesn’t simply suggest hiding loot boxes from minors by default. It would prohibit offering paid-for variable reward systems to minors altogether.
You can read the leaked proposal as published by French publication Contexte.
Children Could Lose Access to Pay-to-Win and Pay-to-Progress Purchases
Loot boxes aren’t the only monetisation system being targeted. The proposed legislation also addresses pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanics, both of which have become increasingly common in games with aggressive monetisation systems.
Pay-to-win mechanics generally allow players to purchase advantages that can influence their performance against other players. These advantages might include stronger equipment, powerful characters, improved abilities, or other gameplay benefits that would otherwise require considerable time to unlock.
Pay-to-progress systems work slightly differently. Instead of directly selling competitive advantages, they encourage players to spend money to accelerate their progress or bypass lengthy gameplay requirements.
The draft argues that these systems can create pressure, particularly for younger players who might struggle to resist the temptation to spend money when progression becomes frustrating.
One passage from the proposal explains the concern:
“It may be difficult for minors to resist such perceived pressure to pay.”
Under the proposed rules, pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanisms would not be available to minors when a game is directed at them or when the publisher knows with reasonable certainty that minors are using the product.
This could have serious implications for games built around progression boosts, premium upgrades, and other purchases designed to make players advance faster.
However, the proposed restrictions are specifically focused on protecting minors. They should not be interpreted as a blanket ban on every form of pay-to-win or paid progression in games played by adults.
In-Game Currency Purchases Could Require Parental Approval
Virtual currency is another major target of the Digital Fairness Act. Many games encourage players to purchase bundles of coins, gems, points, or other digital currencies before spending them on individual items.
Although these systems are convenient, they can make it difficult for consumers to understand how much they’re actually spending. A player might see an item priced at 1,200 virtual coins without immediately realising how much real money those coins represent.
The leaked proposal aims to address this problem by requiring clearer price transparency. Developers would need to communicate the real-world monetary value of purchases made using virtual currencies.
For minors, paid virtual currencies would be disabled by default and could only be activated with permission from a parent or guardian.
This is an important distinction because the proposal doesn’t simply prevent young players from seeing an item’s virtual currency price. It aims to give parents greater control over whether children can purchase paid currency in the first place.
Games that rely heavily on virtual currencies could therefore need to introduce additional parental controls, spending restrictions, and clearer purchase information.
All Players Could Get the Option to Disable Loot Box Offers and Addictive Features
Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the leaked legislation is that certain protections wouldn’t be restricted to minors.
The draft proposes giving all consumers the ability to turn off offers involving uncertainty-based rewards. This means adult players could also receive greater control over whether games present them with loot box offers and similar randomised purchases.
The Digital Fairness Act also looks at what it describes as attention-maximising features. These are systems designed to encourage players to spend more time interacting with a digital product, sometimes by creating habits that become difficult to break.
Within video games, these mechanics can include daily login rewards, streak-based progression systems, repeated notifications, and other features that encourage players to return regularly.
The draft proposes that all consumers should be able to disable certain attention-maximising features, with some practices prohibited for minors and others turned off by default.
While these systems aren’t necessarily harmful in every implementation, the legislation aims to prevent developers from using design choices that encourage excessive or compulsive engagement.
This could become particularly relevant for live-service games that depend on daily engagement, limited-time events, and recurring rewards to maintain their player populations.
Digital Fairness Act Also Targets Dark Patterns and Influencer Marketing
Although video game monetisation is attracting plenty of attention, the Digital Fairness Act isn’t exclusively about gaming.
The proposed legislation is designed to update consumer protection rules across the wider digital economy, addressing practices that influence purchasing decisions or make it difficult for people to understand what they’re agreeing to.
One major target is dark patterns. These are interface designs that manipulate consumers into making decisions they might not otherwise choose.
Examples include making it extremely easy to sign up for a subscription but unnecessarily difficult to cancel it, using misleading buttons, hiding important pricing details, or repeatedly pressuring customers to change decisions they’ve already made.
The proposal also seeks to address unfair pricing practices, including situations where additional charges are revealed only after customers have progressed through several stages of a purchase.
Influencer marketing is another area receiving attention. The draft proposes greater transparency around sponsored content and additional responsibilities for businesses working with influencers.
These changes could affect gaming companies that rely on sponsored streams, promotional videos, social media campaigns, and creator partnerships to advertise their products.
The wider proposal also addresses subscription renewals, cancellation processes, personalised advertising, and digital services that use design features to encourage excessive engagement.
New PEGI Age Rating Rules Have Already Put Loot Boxes Under Pressure
The Digital Fairness Act isn’t the first major European initiative to address concerns about aggressive video game monetisation.
Earlier in 2026, PEGI introduced significant changes to its age-rating criteria, placing greater emphasis on interactive features such as in-game purchases, paid random rewards, communication tools, and mechanics designed to encourage repeated engagement.
One of the most noticeable changes concerns paid random items. Under PEGI’s revised criteria, games containing paid loot boxes or similar randomised purchases generally receive a PEGI 16 rating, although certain implementations can result in an even higher classification.
PEGI also began updating ratings for selected existing digital-only games in October 2026. Titles previously rated PEGI 3, PEGI 7, or PEGI 12 that contain paid random items are being reassessed and moved to PEGI 16 with the appropriate warning descriptor.
EA Sports FC is one of the most prominent examples. Its Ultimate Team mode allows players to purchase FC Points and use them to acquire player packs containing randomly selected items. The game’s PEGI classification has consequently moved to PEGI 16.
This demonstrates that European gaming standards around monetisation are already changing, even before the Digital Fairness Act becomes law.
Players and parents can find additional details about the updated classification system through PEGI’s official announcement about age-rating changes for games containing paid random items.
When Could the EU Digital Fairness Act Become Law?
Despite the potentially significant consequences for gaming companies, there’s an important detail that players should keep in mind: the Digital Fairness Act isn’t currently law.
The leaked document represents an early draft of the European Commission’s proposed legislation. The Commission was expected to present the initiative on November 11, 2026, but that doesn’t mean its proposed restrictions will immediately become legally enforceable.
After the proposal enters the legislative process, it will need to be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Both institutions can examine the proposed measures, negotiate changes, and influence the final version.
That process could take considerable time, and certain provisions may be amended before the legislation is ultimately adopted.
Gaming publishers therefore don’t need to immediately remove their existing loot boxes or virtual currency systems from European versions of their games simply because the leaked draft has emerged.
However, developers and publishers will likely want to pay close attention to the proposal, particularly those operating free-to-play and live-service games that generate substantial revenue through digital purchases.
Could the Digital Fairness Act Change Video Game Monetisation Worldwide?
One of the biggest questions surrounding the proposal is whether its eventual impact will remain limited to Europe or influence gaming markets elsewhere.
Large publishers often operate global services with shared infrastructure, purchasing systems, and monetisation models. Introducing separate rules for European players could require additional technical changes, parental controls, account settings, and regional purchase restrictions.
Some companies might choose to apply similar protections across multiple regions rather than maintain completely separate systems for European customers. However, that’s a business decision rather than something the leaked proposal directly requires outside the European Union.
Games that depend heavily on randomised rewards, premium currencies, and progression purchases could face particularly significant changes if the proposed restrictions become law in their current form.
At the same time, publishers will have an opportunity to adapt their business models, including by making virtual currency pricing clearer, introducing more transparent reward systems, and offering additional spending controls.
The Digital Fairness Act could therefore become one of the most important consumer protection developments for the video game industry in recent years. For now, though, everything depends on what survives the upcoming legislative process.
EU’s Proposed Rules Could Mark a Turning Point for Gaming Monetisation
The leaked Digital Fairness Act draft has already sparked an important discussion about how video games make money and how far publishers should be allowed to go when encouraging players to spend.
Loot boxes, premium currencies, pay-to-win purchases, and daily engagement systems have become standard features across much of the modern gaming industry. While these systems can generate substantial revenue for developers, they have also attracted criticism over their impact on younger players and spending habits.
The European Commission’s proposal suggests that existing consumer protection rules may need to do more to address these practices as digital entertainment continues to evolve.
Whether the final legislation retains all the restrictions outlined in the leaked draft remains to be seen. But with PEGI already changing its age-rating criteria and European lawmakers examining additional protections for consumers, game publishers have plenty of reasons to pay attention.
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