Gaming
Brussels Is Reading Gaming's Receipts While Layden Asks Who Pays a Thousand Dollars
Europe's consumer watchdogs just made in game currencies a bloc wide project. The Consumer Protection Cooperation Network, which gathers the national consumer authorities of all 27 EU member states, opened coordinated enforcement actions against ten game companies over how they price and sell virtual currency, naming Activision Blizzard UK, Crytek, InnoGames, King, Mojang, Plarium Europe, PLR Worldwide Sales, Riot Games, Supercell and Ubisoft EMEA. The titles under review include 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, chosen for broad reach across devices and age ratings. The action enforces key principles the network published in March 2025, calling for real world prices shown prominently next to items, clear single currency pricing that shows what something costs, bundle designs sized to match item prices so balances stay usable, and a 14 day right of withdrawal even on currency bought but unspent. Contract terms that let a company change currency value unilaterally or close accounts while players keep the right to contest it are flagged as unfair, children count as always vulnerable, and heavy spenders get extra protection. The principles followed a year of talks with industry federations that left consumers still waiting, after which the network ran a large scale market check and picked the games now under review. Cryptocurrencies are carved out of the principles entirely. Fines are still pending, and the companies are expected to engage through formal information requests first.
The pricing debate hit hardware too. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden told The Expansion Pass podcast he doubts gamers will reach into their pockets and pull out 1,000 dollars for a next generation console built on incremental gains. Layden's case is the plateau, and he asked whether "faster, more colorful" still counts as a goal or a differentiator when the leap from PS1 to PS2 felt like VHS to DVD and the PS4 to PS5 jump needs a trained eye to spot. He also argued that day one launches on subscription services like Game Pass make it harder for developers to turn a profit, and analysts keep floating a PS6 arrival in 2028 or 2029 while Sony polls its own studios on the machine's future. The 1,000 dollar figure comes from industry watchers, and Layden attributes it to them rather than to any Sony announcement.
Sony spent the same week making the current generation better instead. The company announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or QSSR, an AI upscaler built for the standard PlayStation 5 through Project Amethyst, its graphics collaboration with AMD. Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei received patches on October 1 adding QSSR as a graphics option on base consoles, the first machine learning upscaling on standard PS5 hardware. Sony principal engineer Daniel Craig described a streamlined neural network architecture tuned around FP16 math and packed math instructions, since the base console carries none of the dedicated machine learning silicon that powers PSSR on the PS5 Pro, which Sony still calls the gold standard. Digital Foundry's early testing found 1440p the sweet spot, with Wolverine reconstructing from 864p at a cost of roughly 1.5 to 1.8 milliseconds per frame. Sony plans to offer QSSR broadly to developers, which makes the base PS5 library sharper for years to come on the hardware already under the TV.
For readers, the common thread is value you can see. Brussels wants the price of a gem pack printed in euros next to the gems, Layden wants the thousand dollar box to show him something his eyes can actually notice, and Sony's engineers just gave five year old consoles a free image upgrade. The industry keeps reaching for bigger numbers, and this week the people paying the bills asked for the numbers to mean something.
Quick answers
What is this story about?
Europe's consumer watchdogs just made in game currencies a bloc wide project. The Consumer Protection Cooperation Network, which gathers the national consumer authorities of all 27 EU member states, opened coordinated enforcement actions against ten game companies over how they price and sell virtual currency, naming Activision Blizzard UK, Crytek, InnoGames, King, Mojang, Plarium Europe, PLR Worldwide Sales, Riot Games, Supercell and Ubisoft EMEA. The titles under review include 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, chosen for broad reach across devices and age ratings. The action enforces key principles the network published in March 2025, calling for real world prices shown prominently next to items, clear single currency pricing that shows what something costs, bundle designs sized to match item prices so balances stay usable, and a 14 day right of withdrawal even on currency bought but unspent. Contract terms that let a company change currency value unilaterally or close accounts while players keep the right to contest it are flagged as unfair, children count as always vulnerable, and heavy spenders get extra protection. The principles followed a year of talks with industry federations that left consumers still waiting, after which the network ran a large scale market check and picked the games now under review. Cryptocurrencies are carved out of the principles entirely. Fines are still pending, and the companies are expected to engage through formal information requests first.
Why does this story matter?
For readers, the common thread is value you can see. Brussels wants the price of a gem pack printed in euros next to the gems, Layden wants the thousand dollar box to show him something his eyes can actually notice, and Sony's engineers just gave five year old consoles a free image upgrade. The industry keeps reaching for bigger numbers, and this week the people paying the bills asked for the numbers to mean something.
Sources
- crypto.news on the EU virtual currency action
- Tech Insider on the nine company probe
- Steampunk Avenue on Layden and the 1,000 dollar question
- Dot Esports on QSSR for the base PS5
New to crypto? Read the crypto glossary, browse frequent questions, read our story, or explore the story archive.