I advised the EU in 2013 that these were gambling mechanics, and showed them how they were being deployed by companies like Disney to very young children. At the time the UK was spearheading regulation for the EU. Now that the UK is in flux, it looks like the EU is leaving it up to Belgium to take this on. The EU will ban this content, certain large Western companies will try to find ways around it, and the EU will not mess around. They will sanction.
If you are a regular reader here at Gamasutra, then you've known this was coming for years. Major companies (that don't seem to follow the news) have been acquiring labor assets and equipment to optimize their gambling operations and that means they are going to be even slower to adapt to the changing environment. Sure, your virtual world was a lucrative place to drop a casino, but there are children in your games unless you want to make your games adult only, which I don't know of any gaming company that wants to do that.
On a personal note, I'm kinda looking forward to playing games again, without having to walk through a casino to get to them.
The specific game I showed regulators in 2013 at the ICPEN summit was Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, a game made for Disney by Gazillion Entertainment, with overt gambling mechanics (including a roulette wheel) aimed at very young children that may not even be of reading age. As I hinted at last week, I suspect someone tipped Disney off to this ruling in advance and the Disney/Gazillion breakup was damage control, four years late.
If you look at the link to the VTM article, you will see that European parents are waking up to news reports showing Star Wars Battlefront 2 (with some amazing animation btw) along with the included gambling mechanics and interviews with regulators. This is an amazing amount of free advertising for both Disney and EA, but not the kind they want. This must be catastrophic news for both companies and (as I've been hinting this year) I think you will see that the financial forecasts for both companies were optimistic because they did not anticipate this happening despite it being four years in the making.
This bewilders me since when I gave my report to the ICPEN in Panama in 2013, the vice president of Disney was sitting three feet from me. I had dinner with her the previous evening. As soon as she was done with her presentation calling for "industry self-regulation" (and we can see clearly what that means) the German chief regulator started asking her why there were gambling mechanics in her products for young children and she fled the conference immediately. The writing was on the wall, I don't understand why they waited for the EU to torpedo their product line and brand image.
When I got back to the USA after the ICPEN summit, I was asked to present at GDC 2014. I was double approved for a talk on children's monetization, the ICPEN summit, and pending regulation. A panel on monetization ethics that I was on was also double approved. Then at the last moment both were cancelled without explanation. People keep asking me why I don't talk at GDC, and this is why. The gaming industry correction I have been warning of is about to double down, but it didn't have to be this way. Even games without gambling mechanics will be affected as parents, media, and legislators begin to demonize our industry and make alternate purchase decisions.
