In August 2020, a lawsuit was filed in an Austrian court, in which the defendants were Sony, FIFA and a 17-year-old teenager.

The Austrian gamer, through his lawyer, filed a lawsuit against Sony, accusing it of allowing or “facilitating” him to play through his PlayStation, as the law on “gambling” was exploited by the Austrian Gaming Act of 1989. The young teenager wasted his €300 worth of FIFA Points to unlock FIFA Ultimate Team packs.

The Austrian teenager accused Sony of directly enticing him to play its most popular game, FIFA, at which point the young man had to seek the help of a lawyer specializing in such cases. Ulrich Salberg for this issue. The latter was very supportive of the idea. Where the lawyer said:

Because video game loot boxes are created by developers who offer them exclusively in games, the prizes violate fair trade laws because there can be no competition.

Austrian lawyer Ulrich Saalberg

The lawyer argued that gambling is permitted in Austria through the state of Österreichische, in which only state-owned authorized gambling companies Austria Lotterien GmbH and Casinos Austria AG are located, and therefore an official request was made by the lawyer for reimbursement of the players he allegedly considered “victims”.

Although the FIFA game was developed by Electronic Arts, an Austrian court ruled in October last year that Sony should bear the brunt of the punishment it faced due to the completion of purchase contracts on the company's PlayStation Store. According to reports, a total of €85,000 was wagered during this period through "loot boxes" and microtransactions.

In the best case scenario for Sony, and with similar cases that have gone through the Austrian court, Sony will only return €338.26 to the young teenager, and there will be no mass refund of other players' money.

In any case, EA continues to be criticized for the way it uses loot boxes that have taken it to court, one of which was the court ruling issued by the Dutch court in The Hague, according to which all loot boxes and digital currencies that the company trades in its games in the Dutch parade. This decision was given in favor of the Dutch Gambling Authority (NGA), which considered that FIFA Ultimate Team violated the law on betting and gambling.

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