PSA: Apex Legends Loot Boxes Disabled In Belgium

Apex Legends has launched to, now overwhelming, success. The free-to-play battle royale game, which uses the last man standing mechanism in teams of three, has hit 25 million players and 2 million concurrent ones in record time, after only being out a week. Much of the game’s trappings follow other massively popular titles like Call of Duty or Overwatch, particularly in the customization aspect. For that customization, however, Apex Legends doesn’t offer everyone the same tools.

 

 

As part of publisher EA’s ongoing issues with loot boxes and the Belgian Gaming Commission, which has declared that such boxes are gambling tools, “Apex Packs” in the battle royale game’s store have been disabled in Belgium. When seeing the Fortnite-like page, Belgian residents have a greyed out tab where the loot boxes are supposed to have their own section.

Normally, the Apex Pack tab has an explanation of what items can be inside a box, the probability and added features. One Apex Pack costs 100 Apex Coins, which is available in the store at a rate of 1000 coins for €9.99, so about a buck a pop.

 

 

Belgian residents can only acquire the items that are currently featured in the store with currency or need to wait to level up sufficiently for an Apex Pack to be a reward. Not every single level grants an Apex Pack, whereas Overwatch does yield one loot box each time, plus arcade drops for a set amount of wins.

EA has only buckled to the Belgian commission in recent weeks. Initially, the board’s decision to start restricting loot boxes in April of 2018 was met with pushback from EA, as CEO Andrew Wilson stated: “We don't believe that […] loot boxes are gambling, firstly because players always receive a specified number of items in each pack, and secondly we don't provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items or virtual currency for real money.” EA then left loot box-like elements in FIFA 18 and 19 until the end of January this year.

Aside from Apex Legends, Belgians can also not purchase loot boxes in Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm, among other games. No alternatives are really offered there either.

At least I've already put around 60 hours in Apex Legends, so I've gotten my fair share of loot boxes. I hope you're enjoying the game as well.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)