PC Gaming

I was frustrated to seeing this (incorrect) framing here and I genuinely didn't have the energy to get past the clickbait enough to see if the actual video reports accurately on what has been issued.

This is not new legislation, this is not a legislative change. This is an administrative body that coordinates existing national consumer protection agencies using already existing legislation that has flagged one example of what they consider to be infringement and issued guidance on what it considers infringement in general.

There is no legislative force to this. You could argue that they are just wrong in court and win. There is no court in the EU obligated to follow these guidelines, they are just more likely to keep you on the right side of these agencies, as far as I understand their role.

This is nominally better than the exceedingly crappy reporting that was doing the rounds this week saying that the "EU had banned MTX", but not by much. The recommendations are very mild and while they're positive and will block some usual dark patterns if applied they won't change one bit of how modern games, AAA or not, are monetized.

I'm also less kind than the people downthread. It takes some serious hypocrisy to make a celebratory video about how the EU is finally going after dark patterns while clickbaiting so hard I can see multiple body parts prolapsing from here.