The government of Belgium has begun investigating the video game company Electronic Arts (EA) over violations regarding the country’s gambling laws. This past April, the Gaming Commission in Belgium classed loot boxes, microtransactions that provide players with various in-game goods at random, as an “illegal game of chance,” making them subject to Belgian laws concerning gambling. Due to this, it is illegal for companies to allow such mechanics to be accessible to minors within games.

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Other game publishers, such as Blizzard and Valve, have all disabled loot boxes for Belgian releases of their games. EA (who made headlines last year over the inclusion of loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II, which many gamers accused of creating a pay to win system), has not chosen to comply with the new ruling. As a result, the gaming commission has referred EA to the public prosecutor’s office, which is now investigating to see if EA has violated the law.

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While EA mostly received criticism last year over Battlefront II’s loot boxes, the mechanic has been present in the FIFA series since 2010 which has included purchasable card packs, where players can buy a random set of different players to create their dream team, prompting some of the most serious players to spend thousands of dollars on the game. Andrew Wilson, the CFO of EA, has asserted that this is not gambling because the cards cannot be exchanged for real cash.

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Despite this defense, loot boxes still remain an unpopular mechanic in the gaming industry. Back in November 2017, an EA representative claimed, in reference to the inclusion of loot boxes in Battlefront II, that “the intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes,” which quickly became the most downvoted comment on Reddit.

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Belgium is not the only country that has made strides against loot boxes. The Netherlands has begun to push for the European Union (EU) to enact legislation against look boxes, which could potentially make loot boxes illegal in most of Europe, which accounts for 75% of all sales of FIFA 18. This could have a major economic impact on EA, as they made a reported $650 million from micro-transactions from Ultimate Team modes in the FIFA and Madden games, mostly from the FIFA games, in 2016.

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Despite the major push from European nations to ban loot boxes, the United States has done relatively little. A few states have launched investigations into the mechanics, but as it currently stands loot boxes are not classed as gambling in the United States and no legislation has been proposed to regulate them in any capacity.