Belgium: Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp to be discontinued in August, future F2P games not releasing in that country

Due to a recent law making certain monetisation schemes such as lootboxes potentially illegal in Belgium (the situation isn’t quite clear), several publishers have had to make changes to their games. For example, Electronic Arts went and removed lootboxes from FIFA 19, while others like Square-Enix/Gumi with Final Fantasy Brave Exvius took more radical steps and completely discontinued their games in Belgium.

And today, Nintendo have announced that both Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will quite simply be discontinued from August 27th 2019 in Belgium. They will no longer be available for download from Google Play and the AppStore, and you will no longer be able to play them.

Therefore, Nintendo ask that players who have Orbs (Fire Emblem Heroes) and/or Leaf Tickets (Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp) to use them before the app is discontinued, on August 27th 2019.

Also, the company announced that all future F2P mobile games (such as Dr. Mario World or Mario Kart Tour) will not be launched in Belgium at all.

As seen every quarter with the latest Financial Results, Europe only accounts for a small portion of Nintendo’s revenue in the mobile space. And since Belgium is a small market in Nintendo’s weakest market, it’s easy to see why the company simply decided to discontinue the app in that country instead of adapting the monetisation scheme. Of course, it would be a different story if Belgium was a bigger market and/or more countries adopted similar laws.

Source: Nintendo