On September 30, 2026, the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, a coalition of national consumer authorities across the European Union, launched a series of sweeping coordinated actions targeting nine major video game companies. This regulatory offensive marks a significant escalation in the ongoing tension between EU watchdogs and the gaming industry, specifically regarding the transparency and ethics of in-game monetization models. The CPC Network is moving to enforce the EU’s "Key Principles on in-game virtual currencies," asserting that current industry practices often obfuscate the real-world financial impact of micro-transactions.
The entities targeted in this wave of enforcement represent some of the most influential players in the global gaming market. The list includes Crytek GmbH (for Hunt: Showdown 1896), InnoGames GmbH (for Forge of Empires), King.com Operations Malta Limited (for Candy Crush Saga), Mojang AB (for Minecraft and Mech Arena), Plarium Europe S.à r.l. (for Gardenscapes), PLR Worldwide Sales Limited, Riot Games Limited (for Valorant), Supercell Oy (for Clash of Clans), and Ubisoft EMEA SAS (for For Honor). Simultaneously, the CPC Network has initiated a parallel action involving Activision Blizzard UK Limited, focusing on ensuring regulatory compliance within the mobile titles Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty Mobile.
The Core Conflict: Monetization and Transparency
At the heart of this regulatory dispute is the way games monetize their user bases through complex, dual-currency systems. In many modern titles, players purchase "virtual currency"—such as gems, gold, or credits—using real-world money. These virtual assets are then used to acquire items or progression boosts within the game. The CPC Network’s fundamental grievance is that these systems decouple the purchase from its actual monetary value, potentially misleading consumers about how much they are truly spending.
The current enforcement action follows a period of attempted dialogue. In 2025, the CPC Network opened a formal discussion with the video games industry to align business practices with the EU’s Key Principles. From the regulator’s standpoint, this dialogue failed to yield satisfactory results. However, the sentiment from the industry side is starkly different. Many stakeholders have expressed that the so-called "dialogue" felt more like a unilateral directive, leading to widespread frustration among developers and publishers who feel the regulators do not fully grasp the intricacies of game design and the hybrid nature of in-game economies.
The CPC Network maintains a clear vision of what compliance should look like: when players execute a transaction within a game using virtual currency, the price should simultaneously be displayed in real-world currency. The regulators argue that existing consumer protection laws should apply to these digital purchases with the same rigor as they would to physical goods or standard digital services.
Technical and Legal Hurdles
While the demand for price transparency may seem straightforward in a traditional retail environment, the gaming industry argues that it creates significant, if not insurmountable, logistical and legal challenges. Assigning a precise real-world value to in-game currency is rarely simple. Pricing models often fluctuate based on the volume of a bundle purchased, and, more importantly, many virtual currencies can be earned through gameplay rather than just purchased with cash.
Industry experts and representatives have raised alarms about the unintended consequences of the CPC’s approach. For instance, if consumer protection laws were applied with extreme strictness to every transaction involving virtual currency, it could lead to a deluge of notifications, such as separate legal confirmations or receipts for every minor purchase. Furthermore, applying standard "right of withdrawal" laws—which typically allow consumers to return goods or cancel contracts—could create a legal paradox. A player could theoretically claim a right of withdrawal both when purchasing the virtual currency and again when spending it on an in-game item, effectively resulting in a "double" right of withdrawal for what was essentially a single financial transaction.
Jari-Pekka Kaleva, managing director of the European Game Developer Federation, summarized the industry’s stance on these difficulties. "It is 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 on the nature of in-game currencies as in-game content," Kaleva noted.
Stretching the Boundaries of Existing Law
The legal basis for the CPC Network’s action relies on a combination of existing EU consumer protection laws, which prohibit misleading commercial practices, and specific rules surrounding "consumer contracts." While the prohibition of misleading practices is a flexible and powerful tool for regulators, it is not a "black-and-white" instrument. It does not explicitly mandate that virtual item prices must be displayed in real-world currency, leaving a grey area that the CPC is now attempting to fill through aggressive interpretation.
The industry has traditionally argued that the act of spending in-game currency—like using gold to buy a sword in an RPG—is an interaction with a game element, not a "consumer contract" in the legal sense. Furthermore, the industry contends that the EU legislation currently being cited was originally designed to govern cryptocurrencies, not the contained, non-fungible virtual tokens used within a game environment.
Critics suggest that the CPC Network is effectively attempting to rewrite the law through enforcement rather than legislation. As noted by legal analysts, while the CPC claims to be applying existing statutes, they appear to be extending them beyond their original scope. This creates a challenging environment for companies attempting to navigate a fragmented regulatory landscape, especially as the EU Commission’s internal approach seems disjointed.
A Fragmented Regulatory Landscape
The timing of this enforcement action has raised questions about the internal coordination of the European Commission. Less than two weeks before the CPC Network launched its crackdown, the Commission presented the draft "EU KIDS Act." While the recitals of that draft document touch upon the need for transparency in virtual currency, the main text of the proposed law does not explicitly regulate these practices, even for children. This creates a situation where the Commission appears to be moving forward with two separate, potentially contradictory speeds: one that recognizes the need for future legislative debate and another that acts as if strict regulations for adults are already in effect.
Furthermore, the Commission has announced plans for a "Digital Fairness Act," expected in November, which is also slated to address in-game monetization. This leads to questions regarding whether the various branches of the EU government are working in concert or if this is a symptom of a broader lack of regulatory cohesion.
Regardless of the confusion at the legislative level, the message to the gaming industry is clear: in-game monetization is under the microscope. The sector faces a multi-front pressure campaign, with the Digital Fairness Act acting as a looming legislative threat and the CPC’s current initiatives serving as immediate, enforcement-led pressure. Beyond these, the industry must also contend with the possibility of uncoordinated, unilateral actions from national consumer protection agencies in individual EU member states, which have historically shown a willingness to take independent action.
Amidst this pressure, the industry argues that it is not standing still. Organizations like PEGI and USK have already begun integrating assessments of monetization mechanisms and the efficacy of parental controls into their game rating systems. Whether these self-regulatory efforts will be enough to satisfy the demands of the CPC Network remains to be seen, but the current wave of enforcement underscores that the era of loose oversight for in-game economies is rapidly coming to an end. As these cases proceed, the legal definitions of virtual value and consumer contracts in gaming will likely be tested in ways that will shape the industry’s business models for years to come.