A lawsuit filed in Austria forces Sony to refund FIFA in-game purchases to players.
Lottery boxes have been around for many years, and some states have classified them as gambling. Earlier this year, Austria ended up in the same court case, which resulted in the conclusion that the Ultimate Team card pack of the FIFA games was deemed illegal gambling.
Now Kotaku reports that PlayStation maker Sony has been forced to reimburse FIFA players for card purchases. The player who files the first claim receives 336.26 Euros. Of course, Sony doesn’t know the amount anywhere, but according to the law firm handling the case, they have “several hundreds” of other customers in line with the same issue. Loot boxes can therefore still be expensive.
Sony has been ordered to pay in this case because the Ultimate Team packages in question were purchased from the PlayStation Store. In the future, the payer of equal compensation depends on the platform from which the lottery boxes were purchased.
Sony hasn’t appealed the verdict since the beginning of the year.