The Digital Fairness Act consultation, but for actual human beings

• Celia Pontin gives background to the Digital Fairness Act in the EU.
• The consultation period around the DFA is open until October 24th, 2025.

Celia Pontin is director of policy and public affairs at Flux Digital Policy.

The DF-what? The DFA is the Digital Fairness Act, an upcoming EU regulatory initiative about consumer protection online. Currently, the European Commission (the body that creates EU legislation) is at an early stage and has yet to draft any of the content, but they’re working on it.

Unless you’ve got a trade body, policy officer, or monitoring service to alert you, it may well have passed you by until now. However, with Supercell setting LinkedIn on fire the other day, it’s suddenly on a lot of people’s radars.

So, what is the commission doing?

Right now, they’re consulting on initial directions for their work, including whether new rules are actually needed. They’re asking the industry and the public (alongside other stakeholders like NGOs, interest groups, and national authorities) to give their views on topics such as dark patterns, influencer marketing, and in-game purchasing.

The consultation was published in July and is open until October 24th.

There’s a questionnaire with their proposals and the option at the end to upload a document. To see the questions you’ll need to log in with an account, and to see the proposals themselves you need to select a ‘yes’ answer on each question. Anyone can respond, but if you’re a business you need to register for transparency, so do that asap.

If you want some more details on the consultation, we drew up a summary here (the deadline was extended after we wrote that - it closes on the 24th , not the 9th). We’ve also got one on the background to the DFA.

Why is everyone getting worried?

One of the areas being consulted on is "specific features in digital products, such as in video games", asking if people want real-world prices to be put next to in-game currency prices for in-game items.

It also covers loot boxes, the ability to turn off features like pay-to-win/progress, and prohibitions for minors.

As has been widely commented on, the in-game currency point could be a significant risk for the free-to-play industry. That’s because there’s often no such thing as a ‘real-world price’ for an in-game item, since the value of in-game currency is contextual. Not only is it therefore very difficult to implement, it wouldn’t actually benefit players.

Elsewhere, the consultation looks at addictive design, where some elements may cover video games.

It’s possible that the loose definitions used in the consultation could significantly restrict the ability of games to, for example, grant EXP for time spent in-game or tell players about new features. Similarly, material on ‘dark patterns’ threatens to limit practices as common as short-term price discounts.

To stress, the DFA isn’t even a draft law yet - it’s the beginning of the process, and there’s still time to respond to the consultation. However, highlighting these areas to this degree indicates that the Commission is really serious about it.

The backstory

Most of the relevant existing law is in the 2005 EU-wide Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD for short), 18 pages of "don’t lie to people, scare them, or exploit children’s naivety". At 20 years old, it predates social media, modern online gaming (no offence, Island of Kesmai), and many studios.

The Commission has concerns about whether consumers are treated fairly online. Last year, they published a report on the Digital Fairness Fitness Check, which assessed the online consumer experience.

This identified possible gaps in current consumer protection law – those areas are what the consultation is asking for feedback on.

The report also identified serious enforcement and compliance concerns, mainly because of ‘regulatory fragmentation’ (countries enforcing the same rules in different ways).

Meanwhile, back in March, the CPC Network (a formal organisation of consumer protection regulators from all EU member states) suddenly published "Key principles on in-game virtual currencies", guidance setting out their view on how to make in-game currencies comply with existing law (UCPD and a couple of other bits).

It doesn’t directly relate to what’s going on with DFA, as it’s a separate piece of work by a different organisation.

There wasn’t a consultation - everyone was taken by surprise and the two main European video game trade bodies released a statement along the lines of: "Hang on, what’s this?!"

There are several concerns with the principles, not least because they treat in-game currency as though it were actual money (which has a lot of legal ramifications), despite it being widely understood to be digital content.

They also told developers to put fiat currency pricing alongside in-game currency pricing, cool their jets on odd-pricing, and a whole host of other somewhat challenging requirements. Many think the CPC Network has interpreted the law incorrectly and that these Principles go beyond what’s legally required.

What does that have to do with the DFA?

Although they are completely separate, the DFA consultation and the CPC Network’s principles cover some of the same concerns. Importantly, the position taken by the CPC Network about the current law is highly likely to influence the direction of the new DFA.

For instance, the CPC Network wants games to use fiat currency statements, which is also what the DFA consultation proposes.

Moreover, they share a common influence - last year, the consumer interest group ‘BEUC’ filed a complaint to the European Commission and the CPC Network about in-game purchases, and a lot of what they raise is reflected by both parties.

Broadly, the CPC Network guidance is about what developers should be doing now, and the DFA is about what they should be doing in future. The consultation open right now is about the proposed direction of the DFA.

So, can we do anything about it? Absolutely.

The European Commission is consulting on the DFA because they want feedback on their proposed topics: they are actively asking people to give them their comments and views.

The consultation is open until October 24th. If you get a move on, that’s enough time to write a response explaining what the impact of the proposals could be on the industry or on your business/game specifically (though bear in mind that these submissions will be made public).

I want to make abundantly clear that responding to consultations isn’t just for what people think of as ‘proper lobbyists’; as a business operating in the EU you can (and should) have your voice heard.

We can’t expect the Commission to already understand the full ramifications of the DFA on the video games sector - they need to be given the information by the people best placed to comment on it. When it comes to this stuff, that’s you.

And sure, if you need a hand you can come to someone like Flux. But (at the risk of being fired), we know that’s not an option for everyone, so don’t feel like you can’t get involved by yourself.