Diablo: Immortal will no longer be released in Belgium or the Netherlands due to lootboxes being illegal in both countries.
The long-awaited mobile (and now PC) game finally arrives on June 2 but developer Activision Blizzard cancelled the launch in the two European countries just days before their release date.
As reported by gamesindustry.biz and confirmed to Eurogamer, Diablo Immortal will not be available there due to "the current operating conditions in these countries", as Belgium and the Netherlands both deem lootboxes to be gambling and they're therefore illegal.
"Diablo Immortal will not be available in Belgium or the Netherlands, and will not appear on Battle.net or the Belgian and Netherlands App or Google Play Stores," a spokesperson told Eurogamer.
The ban was placed in 2018 and is essentially only intended to affect loot boxes that have contents which can be sold for money.
It's unclear if lootbox items will be sold on the secondary market in Diablo: Immortal (or if this will be possible in the game at all) but Activision Blizzard seemingly has some reason to believe this will be the case and has therefore banned the game in these territories altogether.
Diablo: Immortal was announced at BlizzCon 2018 and was rumoured to release on June 30 after a date appeared to those who pre-registered for the game on Apple devices.
It was almost immediately met with negative fan reception due to its mobile-only plans and then-Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack said the company learned that "fundamentally our roots are PC" as a result of the reveal.
However, once the game hit alpha, we called it a hell of a good time, even if it did come with some problems.
Brack stepped down from the his position after Activision Blizzard was hit with a discrimination and harassment lawsuit from the state of California last year, the first in a long series of accusations that have since been made against the company.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
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