On 8 October 2026 Italy's competition and consumer authority, the AGCM, opened an EU-coordinated investigation into Microsoft-group video game companies, with Activision Blizzard the named target. Euronews reports that Italy leads, supported by consumer authorities in Norway and Denmark, under the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network. The question is whether the practices amount to a "widespread infringement" of EU consumer law. This is a probe, not a finding, and that distinction matters for everything below.
The strongest case for the regulators
The concern is not frivolous. When a player buys a bundle of gems, then spends gems on a currency that buys an item, the euro price disappears behind two or three layers of conversion. Consumer authorities argue that this makes it hard for anyone, and especially a child, to track real spending. The AGCM says the same: purchases are priced in tokens rather than euros, often through several conversions, and minors are least able to follow what they spend.
This is not a new theory. In March 2025 the CPC Network adopted Key Principles on in-game virtual currencies, prepared by the Dutch ACM and the Norwegian Consumer Authority. They call for clear and transparent pricing, no hiding of the cost of in-game content, no pressure to buy currency, respect for withdrawal rights and attention to children's vulnerabilities. The Commission then held a stakeholder workshop on 3 June 2025 with game companies, consumer groups and academics. On 21 March 2025 the network had already acted against Star Stable Entertainment, as the Norwegian Consumer Authority recorded, citing ads directed at children, time-limited offers and unclear currency information.
At the end of September 2026 the network widened the effort. PocketGamer.biz reports coordinated actions on 30 September covering ten companies and eleven games, including Riot Games, Ubisoft, Supercell, King and Mojang. The CPC says a high number of firms made no substantive changes despite guidance and dialogue. A regulator that talked for a year and saw no movement has a reasonable case for escalating.
Where the approach is weaker
First, the yardstick is soft law. The Key Principles are guidelines, not legislation. The legally binding rules are older: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC, whose Annex I item 28 bans direct exhortations to children to buy advertised products or to pressure adults into buying them. That is a real, enforceable rule, and cases that fit it deserve to be pursued. But a practice that departs from a best-practice paper is not automatically unlawful. Industry advisers quoted by PocketGamer.biz note that no company has been found to have breached the law, and that the CPC treats virtual currencies like fiat money while the industry sees them as digital content. Courts, not guidance documents, should settle that question.
Second, the penalty framing runs ahead of the evidence. Euronews reports that fines could reach 4% of annual turnover in each affected country if a breach of the Italian Consumer Code is found. A ceiling of that size is a reason for care at the investigative stage: it gives companies a strong incentive to settle on commitments they might have won in court, and the network itself says the cases are meant to set a precedent. Precedent set through negotiated commitments, rather than reasoned decisions, is thin precedent.
Third, the details are still moving. Italy's Microsoft case builds on national probes it opened in December 2025 into Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty: Mobile. Sources differ on details of the earlier procedure and on exactly which group companies are covered, so readers should wait for the AGCM's own documents rather than press summaries. The threshold also deserves scrutiny. A "widespread infringement" requires harm to consumers in at least three EU member states. Norway takes part in the coordination, but it is not an EU member, so the threshold depends on facts the investigation has yet to establish.
A proportionate path
The pro-innovation position is not that virtual currencies should be unregulated. It is that the remedy should match the demonstrated harm.
- Show the euro price. A mandatory real-money price next to every token price is cheap to implement, easy to audit and directly addresses the opacity the AGCM describes. It does not require redesigning games.
- Target children specifically. Default spending limits, parental controls and a ban on direct exhortation of minors address the vulnerable group without burdening adult players, who generally understand that a game currency is a game currency.
- Prefer clear rules over negotiated ones. If the EU wants virtual-currency pricing standardised, the legitimate route is a rule that every studio can read in advance, from the legislature or from a reasoned court ruling, not a series of company-by-company settlements.
- Protect the sector's economics. Free-to-play funds a large part of the game industry. Pricing transparency and child protection are compatible with that model. Blanket restrictions on in-game currencies are not.
What to watch
The next steps are the companies' responses and whether the network accepts commitments or moves to enforcement. If the AGCM publishes its findings, the useful test is simple: does the evidence show consumers were misled about what they paid, and did children in particular spend beyond what they or their parents understood? If so, the existing law already covers it and the case should proceed on that basis. If the case rests mainly on the Key Principles, the Commission should say so and write binding rules, rather than letting guidance harden into law through investigations.