EU consumer authorities open eleven coordinated actions against ten video game companies over virtual currency

European consumer protection authorities have moved from quiet guidance to formal enforcement against the video game industry's most profitable monetisation tool: the in-game virtual currency. On Wednesday, the European Commission announced that the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, which groups national enforcement bodies and is coordinated by the Commission, had opened coordinated actions against a set of major publishers and studios over the way they sell, price and package digital currencies inside games.

The companies named in the joint statement are Activision Blizzard UK, Crytek, InnoGames, King.com, Mojang, Plarium Europe, PLR Worldwide Sales, Riot Games, Supercell and Ubisoft EMEA. The affected titles span a wide slice of the global market: Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty Mobile, Hunt: Showdown 1896, Forge of Empires, Candy Crush Saga, Minecraft, Mech Arena, Gardenscapes, Valorant, Clash of Clans and For Honor. Three of the companies involved, Activision Blizzard, King and Mojang, are part of Microsoft, which gives the action an unusual concentration of targets inside a single corporate group.

The enforcement rests on the European Union's seven Key Principles on in-game virtual currencies, first published in March 2025. Those principles were not presented as new legislation but as an interpretation of existing EU consumer directives, a distinction that has become the central legal battleground in the days since the announcement. The CPC Network says it is applying rules that already exist. The industry, and at least one specialist lawyer, argue that the network is stretching them.

What is not in dispute is the scale of the commercial activity under scrutiny. Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection Michael McGrath framed the intervention around reach: roughly half of Europeans play video games, he said, making gaming a major part of the continent's digital economy and everyday lives. With that reach, he argued, comes responsibility.

Key Facts

Decrypt reported on 1 October 2026 that European consumer authorities have opened eleven coordinated actions against ten video game companies over the way they sell and price in-game virtual currencies. The CPC Network named all ten companies in a joint statement, and the eleven titles were picked for their broad reach, availability across devices and range of age ratings, according to the same report.

The seven Key Principles require that the real-world price of in-game items and currency be shown prominently, that traders should not mix currencies or force repeated exchanges that obscure cost, and that players should not be pushed into buying more currency than an item actually needs. Deliberately mismatched bundles that leave a stranded balance are singled out for criticism. Consumers also keep a 14-day right of withdrawal, including for virtual currency they have bought but not spent. Contract terms that let companies unilaterally change currency value or close accounts without any contest are flagged as unfair. Children are treated as always vulnerable, and any game not aimed exclusively at adults should expect a significant share of under-18 players. High spenders, the so-called whales, are also classed as vulnerable and face a stricter fairness test.

The scope is deliberately bounded in one direction. A footnote excludes cryptocurrencies and currencies that can only be earned through play and never bought, so the whole regime targets currencies purchased with real money inside closed game economies. Beyond pricing, the network gives particular attention to loot boxes, dark patterns, aggressive commercial practices and the direct exhortation of children to buy, naming misleading countdown timers and unfounded scarcity claims among the problems.

In parallel, and separately, the CPC Network is conducting an action with Activision Blizzard UK Limited covering Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty Mobile. That strand reaches wider than pricing: it also covers in-game currency sales, personal data collection, potentially addiction-promoting design, default child-safety settings, direct marketing to children and account blocking. heise online reported on 30 September 2026 that the authorities have not yet specified the deadlines the companies will be given or the consequences they face, describing the current statement as primarily a declaration of intent.

The process did not begin this month. heise online reported on 30 September 2026 that the European consumer organisation BEUC initiated the matter in September 2024, when BEUC and 22 member organisations filed an EU complaint. The network subsequently held workshops with the industry in June and September 2025, after which, Decrypt reported on 1 October 2026, it found indications that a high number of companies had made no substantive changes to their games as a result of guidance or talks. Self-regulation schemes such as PEGI brought some improvements but, in the network's assessment, often fail to address the core of the harmful practices.

Analysis

The most striking feature of this package is the gap between what regulators say they are doing and what the enforcement actually looks like on the ground. GamesIndustry.biz published an analysis on 1 October 2026 by Dr Andreas Lober, a partner at ADVANT Beiten, which concludes that while the CPC Network asserts it is applying existing laws, it appears to be extending them, potentially beyond permissible limits. That is not a minor procedural quibble. It determines whether these actions end in negotiated changes to storefront design or in years of litigation about legal competence.

What this really means is that the European Commission has decided the voluntary phase is over. The sequence is telling: BEUC and 22 member organisations complained in September 2024, the seven principles arrived in March 2025, workshops followed in June and September 2025, and then a finding that a high number of companies had made no substantive changes. Enforcement was the predictable next step, and the absence of stated deadlines or penalties in the announcement does not weaken the signal. It keeps the pressure open-ended, which is often more effective than a fixed fine schedule.

The legal objections are substantive, not merely defensive. GamesIndustry.biz flags the difficulty of drawing a real-world value for a currency whose price varies by bundle size or can be earned through play, and warns that strict application could hand consumers a double right of withdrawal despite there being only one financial transaction. European Games Developer Federation managing director Jari-Pekka Kaleva said it was unfortunate that the CPC network was not ready to develop further industry proposals that keep it clear and transparent for both businesses and players where the actual financial transaction happens, and avoid any risk of misleading consumers about the nature of in-game currencies as in-game content. That is a fair description of the industry's core anxiety: if a currency is treated as money for the purpose of refunds, it becomes hard to treat it as content for the purpose of licensing.

The bigger picture here is that this enforcement wave is unlikely to be the final word. The Commission presented a draft EU KIDS Act less than two weeks before the announcement, according to GamesIndustry.biz, and has announced a draft Digital Fairness Act for November. Rules that regulators are now asserting through interpretation would be placed on a firmer statutory footing in that forthcoming draft. Companies facing coordinated actions today are, in effect, negotiating against a legal baseline that is about to be written into legislation, and that is a much stronger position for the Commission than for the publishers.

Why It Matters

For players, the practical stakes are concrete. If the principles are enforced as written, shops would have to display the real-money equivalent of an item alongside its virtual price, bundle sizes would have to align with what items actually cost so players are not left holding unusable leftovers, and the 14-day withdrawal right would explicitly cover unused purchased currency. That last point alone would change how digital storefronts handle refunds, an area where games have historically diverged sharply from other digital retail.

For the industry, the timing is awkward. heise online reported on 30 September 2026 that the rules could eventually be enshrined in the Digital Fairness Act, whose draft the Commission intends to present in the fourth quarter of 2026. So the companies named this week are being asked to change live products under an interpretive framework, while knowing that a firmer and possibly broader framework is months away. Complying twice is expensive; waiting is riskier.

There is also a reputational dimension that reaches beyond Europe's borders. The named titles include some of the most played games in the world, and the CPC Network explicitly justified its selection by reach, device coverage and age ratings rather than by any allegation of individual wrongdoing. Children are treated as always vulnerable under the principles, and the Commission's statement was blunt that some video games directly exhort children to make purchases despite an explicit prohibition in EU consumer protection law. Every major publisher with a global live-service game now has a reason to read the seven principles closely, whatever their headquarters address.

Next Up

The immediate next step belongs to the companies. They must respond to national authorities within each jurisdiction where the coordinated actions were opened, and the CPC Network has not published deadlines or a schedule of consequences, so the near-term visibility is poor. The parallel Activision Blizzard UK action, covering data collection, addictive design, default parental controls, direct marketing to children and account blocking alongside currency sales, is the strand most likely to produce early substantive changes because it touches product design rather than pricing display alone.

Further out, watch the Digital Fairness Act, whose draft the Commission intends to present in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the draft EU KIDS Act that preceded this enforcement wave. Both would turn contested interpretation into binding text, and both would determine whether the seven Key Principles remain guidance with teeth or become the foundation of a formal EU regime for in-game currencies.