Fair Play? In-Game Currencies Face Real World Scrutiny

The EU’s consumer protection watchdog has declared that video game publishers are unfairly, and illegally, tricking video gamers into spending real-world money on in-game merch and perks; particularly children. 

The global video games industry is worth trillions of euros and growing fast. With hundreds of millions of dedicated gamers playing together from all over the world, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) easily becomes its own geo-political force, with its own virtual economy. The denizens of these on-line worlds face challenges in teams, factions and player-versus-player (PvP) game-play in which many hours of skill-building, tactics training and strategic thought are invested.

It’s little...