Back in 2018, the Netherlands Gaming Authority (NGA) came down hard on games that featured loot boxes. The NGA made the practice illegal, which meant that any publisher that did not comply would either be fined or have the sale of its games banned in the region entirely. The Belgian government followed suit, ultimately stopping loot boxes dead in their tracks in the region. The investigation came about after the Star Wars Battlefront 2 controversy, which included some pay-to-win mechanics with Star Cards via loot boxes.
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Now it seems as though Lost Ark is unable to be published in both countries owing to their regulations relating to paid items containing RNG rewards in games. In Lost Ark players are able to purchase Gem Chests and Packs of Cards with real-world money, as well as fast-track the refinement process by purchasing high-level components from Mari’s Secret Shop, also with real-world money.
Lost Ark is currently Steam’s second most-played game even without support from the above-mentioned regions. The game currently has an all-time peak of 1,325,305 concurrent players, which means it still has a ways to go before reaching PUBG’s ridiculous 3,257,248 concurrent players at the games’ all-time peak, but is still off to a great start.
Unfortunately, this was not the end of the game’s server problems as Lost Ark recently experienced an issue that would not even allow players to join the lengthy server queues.
Lost Ark is currently available on PC.
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Source: Ginx
