# Impact of European Commission Crackdown on Virtual Currency in EVE Online?

**URL:** <https://forums.eveonline.com/t/impact-of-european-commission-crackdown-on-virtual-currency-in-eve-online/481245>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Tags:** payment\
**Created:** [March 27, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/impact-of-european-commission-crackdown-on-virtual-currency-in-eve-online/481245 "2025-03-27T00:23:10Z")\
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**Author:** ![Gerard\_Amatin](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/gerard_amatin/32/481361_2.png) [@Gerard\_Amatin](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Gerard_Amatin)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2025, 7:13am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/impact-of-european-commission-crackdown-on-virtual-currency-in-eve-online/481245/8 "2025-03-27T07:13:55Z")

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It won’t have much impact on EVE, I think.

There’s a PDF with a bunch of pointers to game companies about the changes:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/e/d/c/edc4249d71dfc437702884641d5eb0391fa92c79.png)

I won’t link the PDF here, but you can search for **“key principles on in-game virtual currencies”** on [European Commission, official website - European Commission](https://commission.europa.eu/index_en) to find it.

I see that the EU requires for example gaming companies to put the real world price next to the in-game currency price:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/1/5/7/15787c2cded25276b58e35a4735c4d56160261e2.png)

This is easily done by showing in the only PLEX store EVE has, the NES, not only the PLEX prices but also the prices in your local currency:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/3/2/8/328e651e9ab3317ce1a1b9cd0de66f60e944c3fa.jpeg)

And they’ll have to allow players to buy any amount of PLEX instead of only packs of certain sizes:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/f/8/8/f88b4aad1c15c4bf94c18c4042582cea7855824b.png)

So instead of this:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/c/0/d/c0d2648cfdd23c52ad8398fdfb840fe90090e9bc.jpeg)

We get a simple 1 PLEX = €0.0499 pack with choice how many you want to buy.

As I see nothing to stop them from giving bonuses for larger packs, I don’t see why CCP cannot continue giving bonus PLEX as usual for buying more than an X amount at once, like the extra free PLEX you get for 1000 PLEX packs and bigger.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/2/5/b/25ba2620296e1e8fb502eb06e6b020335524f262.jpeg)

The only trouble I see here is that players should also be able to refund unused PLEX:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/original/4X/1/5/0/150b78ef37693f1f8020e0c91850f952c2d8bd64.png)

Which in case of bonus amounts is easily exploited by players when they buy a pack of 1000 PLEX, get 100 PLEX extra, then refund 800 of it but keep the bonus.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if the bonus is going to be delayed until after the refund period has expired. Or that refunding also requires you to refund the bonus.

I haven’t seen everything, but while it’s going to be some extra work for CCP to comply I don’t think much will change for us.

TL;DR: I expect a couple of changes, but nothing major for us players.

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