[Lootboxes court ruling in the Netherlands]

@mercury ranique.2170 said:I've been reading the court ruling. The court is very clear that it is important that the content of the lootboxes have a value not only in the virtual economy but also on the real market. As this is not the case with GW2, I doubt this ruling change anything

At first glance the reasoning of the gambling authority (in 7.1) seems to be that coins, which the objects acquired from the lootbox can be traded for, can be sold for real money on third party sites even if that's against EA's rules, the court seems to accept this reasoning.

Given that GW2 gold can be sold on 3rd party sites for real money (which is similarly against the rules) and certain items can be sold on the trade post I don't see a lot of reasons for a judgement involving GW2 ending differently (unless this gets appealed resulting in a different conclusion), there's a few small differences but I doubt they'll lead to a different conclusion.Now whether GW2 is anywhere near he top of the list for enforcement is another question.

@"aspirine.6852" said:I'd rather see that my government doesnt meddle in my gaming affairs. I think they have some more serious issues right now instead of belittle people..

"Gambling affairs", not "gaming affairs".

As for the excuses Anet might use that some people are mentioning, good luck with that, but I'm not seeing those working.

[Spending Money Is Supporting The Game]

@knomslayer.9457 said:No, there is no such thing spending too much real life money on the game.There certainly is, any more than you can afford or think it's worth is too much, for me, any more than I've already spent would be too much, until Anet decides to sell anything worth buying (and as skins aren't that for me, that might be a while).

It may well be that spending money on the junk* Anet's selling supports the game, you fail to prove so but I have no strong reason to disbelieve it.But that's just not the relation I, as a customer, wish to have with any company.

• Opinions on the products in question may vary

[Why i can't get gem refund if i bought the game 20 days ago from an official retailer?]

Because that's what Anet decided as their policy.That's pretty much all there is to it.

I believe the term "refund" to be a poor choice here, especially for the compensation in gems and sadly this terminology seems to be a major factor in several of the less than helpful replies.A better way of looking at it is that, if I've understood the situation correctly (and I admit I haven't followed this closely as it seems the announcement was so useless I can't be bothered to look for a transcript), they gave 3 levels of compensation depending on various factors:1: Compensation in money equal to the purchase price2: Compensation in gems with an equal retail price to the purchase price3: Compensation in a handfull of ingame stuff

As for the people saying there is no contractual/legal relation between you and Anet, that's just wrong (and kind of besides the point), Anet has the obligation, towards all of us, to provide us access to those areas of the game we paid for, whether they engaged in this relation by proxy (although that might not be the exact English legal term) or directly makes little difference. (That's not an absolute and eternal obligation, circumstances may arise that allow them to get out of the obligation.)What is important is that they aren't reneging on that obligation, those of us who bought HoT will still be able to access the HoT content, they were under no obligation to not give what we paid for away for free.

They are not legally obliged to offer any form of compensation (although not doing so might not go over too well).

Were they able to offer anyone who activated HoT within any period any quantity of gems? Certainly, but they didn't have to and chose not to.Woould it be better/fairer/more reasonable for them to do so? I'd say yes, but that's of little importance as I'm not a shareholder or in any other position to influence their decisions.

All you can do is try to convince them, they might read this thread or perhaps you could have support get you in contact with someone who could do something.If you choose not to or fail to, try to accept that beyond what you paid for you'll get the third type of compensation.

@KelyNeli.4516 said:They could close the servers even tommorow afternoon and you have nothing to say in this matter, read the terms of service.That would largely depend on how good the consumer protection laws in your area are, if such a situation were to occur in the EU I wouldn't bet on it, in the USA, yeah, probably, I don't think they really do consumer protection there.