In June, the Belgian Entertainment Association (representing game publishers, of course) managed to convince Belgian authorities to outlaw game rentals. On the grounds that renting games made a sizeable dent in game sales. Part of that deal was that, from June, video stores couldn't buy any new games to rent out, but could keep on renting out the ones they had until December. Well, with December approaching, Belgian paper De Standaard has confirmed that, come December 1, Belgians won't be able to rent video games. At all. Bet the publishers are happy with that one! Pity about the, you know. Gamers. Videogames verhuren plots verboden [De Standaard, thanks everyone!] UPDATE - Seems the De Standaard report left a few things out. Namely that the root of the problem has been that rental stores have been buying retail copies of games then renting them, instead of paying publishers the licensing money for a rental copy. Cheeky. So that's what the BEA are cracking down on. If a rental store wants to pay for a rental copy (which we guess they never do), they're more than welcome to rent games to their heart's content.
We may earn a commission from links on this page.