Dutch regulator fines Fornite-maker Epic Games €1.1M for ads aimed at kids

There have been some attempts by EU and national courts and lawmakers to curb the proliferation of dark patterns in the gaming industry over the past couple of years, and I welcome every one of them. Lootboxes are just gambling in disguise, and all these &quot;buy now&quot; messages to pressure kids are not that much better in my view.<p>The fines are too low and the process is too slow for my liking, but any more and people will come out of the woodwork saying &quot;the EU just tries to harm US companies&quot;. This is a surprisingly popular viewpoint even on hn, as can be seen in any discussion of EU regulations on booking.com, Facebook, Airbnb or just websites with insane levels of user tracking.

Fortnite&#x27;s revenue is more than 5 billion annually. This fine corresponds to about 2 hours loss of revenue.

&quot; ACM also found misleading countdown timers used in the Item Shop to put pressure on kids. In many cases, the item was still available at the same price after the timer reached zero. “Children were thus put under pressure to make purchase decisions quickly because they were under the impression that they would otherwise miss out on the items on offer,” the ACM said, fining Epic Games 562,500 for that violation. &quot;