Microtransactions and free-to-play: a new economic reality in video games

Video gaming keeps growing and spreading across multiple devices. Once confined to consoles and computers, video games are now undergoing profound changes in the way they are distributed and accessed, notably with the rise of mobile gaming. These developments go hand in hand with economic changes linked to the way this cultural product is consumed today. More precisely, access to a video game no longer rests solely on the purchase of a given product: it can now involve a series of expenses likely to take up a lasting share of the player’s purchasing power and, in some situations, to weaken their financial situation.

It was in the early 2000s, with the rise of the internet, that these economic changes really began to be felt. The spread of digital games largely contributed to the democratisation of a business model now commonly known as free-to-play. On the face of it, this model is based on free access to the game. However, being free does not rule out the possibility for the player to make purchases during their gaming experience. These may concern purely aesthetic items, such as appearances (skins), accessories or character customisation elements, but also features or content likely to make the player’s progress easier or faster. The model thus relies on gradually converting part of the player base into consumers of digital goods or services within the game itself.

According to the annual report of SELL (the French video game publishers’ association), as relayed by the French video game agency AFJV, revenue from microtransactions and DLC (downloadable content) grew by 51% in 2025 compared with 2024.

Given the significant economic questions at stake in France and across the European Economic Area, what political and/or legal measures should be put in place to ensure consumer protection?

I. The microtransaction, a mechanism of continuous solicitation of the consumer

A. Definition and mechanics of the microtransaction

A microtransaction is any purchase, with real money or through an intermediate virtual currency, of a digital good within a game that has already been installed or paid for. Two opposing logics must however be distinguished. On the one hand, in a so-called classic microtransaction, the player knows exactly what they are buying before paying. The act remains a purchase in the traditional sense, merely made easier by the in-game store. On the other hand, with a loot box, the player no longer pays for a specific item but for a chance to obtain one item from a range of possible outcomes, some of which are deliberately made rare to encourage repeated purchases. In many respects, this resembles gambling. In other words, the player spends without knowing what they will win. A loot box may contain a card, a character, a cosmetic appearance or a bonus, and more specifically any item with a very high level of rarity that influences the consumer’s economic behaviour.

For example, the American giant Electronic Arts (hereinafter “EA”) caused enormous frustration among players with Star Wars Battlefront II by tying part of its progression to random purchases. The football simulation game FIFA, developed by the same publisher, follows the same logic. The Ultimate Team mode (FUT), part of the franchise for more than a decade and carried over into EA Sports FC, is based on a system of packs. The player spends real money (or a virtual currency) to buy packs containing a random set of real footballer cards, in the hope of obtaining rare or legendary players to build their team.

Faced with this phenomenon, some States have not remained silent. In Belgium, government pressure led EA to stop selling these virtual points in January 2019. The Belgian government had treated this practice as a game of chance and, as a result, banned its sale. Yet this political and legal position is far from unanimous. In the Netherlands, Electronic Arts was fined €10 million in 2020, the Dutch gaming authority having found that FIFA packs constituted games of chance. However, in 2022, the Dutch Council of State ruled that the loot boxes in this game did not constitute gambling.

On this basis, the question of whether microtransactions should be treated in the same way as loot boxes has not been fully settled.

B. Increased financial exposure for the consumer

Under French law, Article L. 111-1 of the French Consumer Code sets out the general principle of a general pre-contractual duty to inform imposed on professionals. The professional must clearly communicate to a potential buyer the characteristics of the product as well as the risks it may involve. This obligation extends to all contracts for digital services or content concluded from 1 January 2022. Applied to video games, the publisher must communicate the most important information relating to the conditions under which the game and its content are supplied and interrupted. In addition, there is the legal guarantee of conformity, governed by Articles L. 224-25-12 to L. 224-25-26 of the French Consumer Code.

However comprehensive this legal framework may seem on paper, it runs up against the specific nature of random microtransactions. As early as 2019, a question put to the French National Assembly pointed out that the inclusion of loot boxes in video games raises consumer information issues, particularly when the consumer bought a game they could only fully enjoy by making additional purchases that were not announced at the time of the initial transaction. The government had then acknowledged that Articles L. 111-1 et seq. could allow the DGCCRF (the French consumer protection authority) to penalise such failures. Since then, however, this legal potential has remained largely unused in practice. In June 2022, the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir highlighted the inaction of public authorities towards publishers who dangle the prospect of substantial winnings before players without ever disclosing the real probability of winning. Moreover, the litigation surrounding FIFA Ultimate Team illustrates this gap in concrete terms: two French players took legal action to challenge the way FUT packs are sold, one of them having spent around 600 euros in a few months without obtaining any of the players he was looking for. In theory, this case could therefore have amounted to a failure to provide information on the essential characteristics of the goods sold within the meaning of Article L. 111-1.

Consequently, while France does have, on a reading of its statutes, a sufficient legal arsenal to regulate the transparency of microtransactions, what it still lacks is effective enforcement.

At European level, the European Union is working to find solutions to strengthen consumer protection.

II. European legal perspectives

“Consumer law is no longer suited to all online practices.” This is the key takeaway from the fitness check published in October 2024 by the European Commission. The report aimed to assess whether the current rules are fit to ensure a high level of consumer protection in the digital environment.

That said, several European instruments currently in force, together with new texts due to apply soon, could significantly strengthen consumer protection.

A. A European legal foundation already in force

Even before the Digital Fairness Act was announced, European Union law already offered consumers a basis of protection, built up gradually through several texts. First, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive prohibits misleading designs, commonly known as dark patterns, which aim to push the player to buy, such as fake countdown timers designed to create an artificial sense of urgency. Second, the Omnibus Directive (2019/2161) strengthened this framework by introducing dissuasive financial penalties, as shown by its transposition into Italian law through Legislative Decree No. 26 of 7 March 2023, which raised the maximum cap on penalties for unfair commercial practices from 5 to 10 million euros. In addition, European consumers enjoy, in many cases, a right of withdrawal, although this right remains difficult to apply to virtual items once they have been consumed or integrated into an ongoing game. Finally, the Digital Services Act of 19 October 2022, fully applicable to all platforms since 17 February 2024 (very large platforms having already been subject to it since 25 August 2023), imposes transparency obligations which, although they do not specifically target loot boxes, nonetheless apply to studios distributing their games through platforms covered by this regulation (online platforms). European consumers therefore already have, in theory, a significant safety net. However, this net remains fragmented, insofar as each Member State retains its own discretion over the legal classification of loot boxes. This explains why Belgium banned them as early as 2018, while France considered, at the same time, that they fell outside the legal definition of gambling. It is precisely this divergence, however protective it may be in theory, that the Digital Fairness Act aims to overcome.

B. The Digital Fairness Act, a potential harmonised response in the making

According to the European Commission, the protection of EU consumers is under threat. Data-driven personalisation, recommender systems and interface design now undermine consumer choice and push consumers into decisions that go against their own interests. Accordingly, in its 2026 work programme, the Commission announced, under the priority “Protecting our democracy, upholding our values”, a legislative initiative called the “Digital Fairness Act”. With the Digital Fairness Act (hereinafter “DFA”), several digital practices likely to influence or manipulate consumer behaviour fall within its scope: misleading or manipulative interfaces commonly known as dark patterns, misleading marketing practices by influencers on social media, the addictive design of certain digital products and services intended to capture or prolong users’ attention, and unfair personalisation and profiling practices exploiting consumers’ vulnerabilities for commercial purposes.

Of these four areas, it is the addictive design of digital products and services that is most directly relevant here, since the video game sector is explicitly identified in the Commission’s preparatory work as one of the most concrete fields of application of this practice. The Commission identifies addictive design as one of its priorities, insofar as operators have a direct economic interest in maximising the time and money users invest. The report behind the DFA thus lists, among the mechanisms concerned, features drawn directly from the video game sector, such as daily login streaks (streaks) and artificial countdown timers, as well as devices borrowed from gambling such as loot boxes and wheels of fortune. The sale of virtual currencies in bundles, which often forces the player to keep an unusable leftover balance, is also singled out. The report adds that in 2024, EU consumer law contained no specific provision on addictive design, which created persistent legal uncertainty about publishers’ use of these mechanisms. Consequently, the Digital Fairness Act should not be understood as a text intended to ban loot boxes or virtual currencies outright, but rather as a response to the inability of current law to address digital addiction as a whole.

The protection of minors is, moreover, a central focus of the forthcoming text, since children are considered particularly exposed to these spending incentives. The preparatory consultations brought out precise demands that can be directly applied to the video game sector, such as the mandatory display of prices in real currency rather than virtual currency, greater transparency on the odds associated with loot boxes, or restrictions on features deemed addictive. On the procedural side, the European Commission adopted the Consumer Agenda 2030 on 19 November 2025, confirming its intention to present a legislative proposal on digital fairness in the fourth quarter of 2026. Until this text has been formally adopted, European consumers therefore remain faced with some uncertainty as to the legal framework governing monetisation mechanisms likely to expose them to repeated spending.

Sources

• AFJV, 2025 report on the French video game market (SELL) (link)
• Journal du Geek, « Loot boxes : l’Europe pourrait changer durablement les règles », 6 July 2026 (link)
• EA, statement on FIFA Points in Belgium (link)
• La Crème du Gaming, Electronic Arts cleared of the loot box fine in the Netherlands (link)
• Casino.org, “EA hits $1 billion in microtransactions, slapped with lawsuit over FIFA 20” (link)
• French National Assembly, written question No. 14570 (15th legislature) (link)
• European Commission, Review of EU consumer law (Digital fairness fitness check) (link)

Maleine OUMAR NIANGCo-founder, intellectual property lawyer, student at CEIPI

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