An unnamed 15 year-old boy residing in North Belgium is claimed to have spent some €37,000 ($46,000) on a free-to-play iOS title called Game of War: Fire Age, according to local media.

National Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad is quoted as claiming that the Flemish boy "accidentally" spent the vast sum using his mother's card. It is unclear why the mother's bank allowed these sums to be deducted from her account without intervening.

The Belgian Gambling Commission was quoted by the newspaper as saying "we need stricter rules.”

Game of War: Fire Age is a strategy title that currently lies third in the top-grossing chart on the UK App Store.

Free-to-play games have proven to be controversial in the past five years. Central to complaints from gamers is that pay models become a distraction from the core gameplay experience.

But others believe the system has reignited interest in games, and has helped games companies such as Zynga and King become major successes.

In February, the UK Office of Fair Trading issued new guidelines for companies selling free-to-play games, following a series of complaints from consumers.

"Following our market investigation in 2013, we had concerns that there were industry-wide practices that were potentially misleading, commercially aggressive or otherwise unfair," the OFT wrote.

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The existing process of joining Raids in Destiny could be changed in the future, Bungie has said, potentially opening up the challenges to more people.

Raid missions in Destiny currently require a group of friends to form a Fireteam in order to gain admittance. However, some players believe it would be more convenient if they could automatically form a team online through matchmaking. The option to join a raid begins at level 20, once the main story missions of the game ends. They typically take many hours to complete.

Such a process would mean players wouldn't need to organise teams and schedule play times. However, developer Bungie is hesitant to allow this, partly because it has built challenges that hinge so much on teamwork and surviving as a unit. As explained by community manager David "DeeJ" Dague on the Destiny blog, it's hard to tell if a team of strangers would be able to complete most raids.

"The Raid was designed for solid teams of killers who have made a commitment to solve a dense and explosive riddle," he wrote.

"Most of the raiding parties who have emerged victorious from the Vault of Glass have sworn that one weak link would have doomed their chain."

But Dague says he and the team is willing to be proven wrong: "There have been other stories, of course. We’ve heard tell of Guardians who met each other just outside the door that leads into that vault. Strange tales have reached our ears--tales of total strangers who have banded together to see the Raid all the way through to a triumphant finale."

He added: "Those stories surprise us, but the players of our games always have. The best I can do to answer your question is to let you know that you’ve been heard. We’re having conversations about how Matchmaking might support the more challenging activities in Destiny. It’s a start."

Destiny's patch 1.0.2 went live last week, changing up the way Engrams work and tweaking some aspects of the Crucible. You can get the full rundown here.