Pokémon Unite gets knocked out of Belgium and the Netherlands in late 2025
Image via The Pokémon Company/TiMi.
Pokémon Unite will be shut down in Belgium and the Netherlands on November 30, 2025.
A statement from TiMi and the Pokémon Company reveal the two companies “made the difficult decision to end service” for the multplayer MOBA in those two regions. The game first released for the Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android in 2021.
“We’d like to thank our players in Belgium and Netherlands for their support,” they wrote, “and we apologise for any inconvenience.”
Subscriptions and in-game items will no longer be purchasable by October 31, 2024, and players in Belgium and the Netherlands are encouraged to use all in-game items before the end date.
No specific reason for Pokémon Unite’s shut down was given, and at time of writing, this is only happening for those two areas.
But as GamesIndustry notes, it may stem from Belgium and the Netherlands’ years-long crackdown on loot boxes. Unite features an in-game mechanic wherein players get cosmetics by spending currency bought with real-world money.
The Dutch have always locked down on loot boxesLoot boxes have been a controversial mechanic since its inception, and Belgium and the Netherlands were some of the first countries to actively push back on its inclusion in games.
In 2022, Dutch politicians called for stricter regulations, and even called for them to be fully banned for being “addictive and burdening families with unexpected bills.”
Belgium officially declared them illegal in 2018. In response, developers like Blizzard and Nintendo either removed the mechanic from their games or delisted them in the country entirely.
That same year, researcher Leon Y. Xiao released a study claiming Belgium’s efforts were largely “ineffective” at stopping games with loot boxes from being released in the country. Xiao noted how the law is easy to break and if genuinely enforced, it would be damaging in several ways.
He also believed at the time it would be equally ineffective for other countries to follow suit. But recently, Australia has tried a different tack by giving a default M rating to any game with paid loot boxes.
The classification guidelines went into effect just last week, and titles with “simulated gambling” (like casino games) are legally restricted to adults 18 or older with a minimum R18+ classification.
About the Author
Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com
A Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has written for numerous sites including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his writing can be found at io9 over on Gizmodo. Don’t ask him about how much gum he’s had, because the answer will be more than he’s willing to admit.
