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EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

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Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#11

Post by chinathrow »

Insanity wrote: post #9

When playing Battlefield 5 beta last weekend, I was actually thinking about this. I'm wondering how they'll approach it in that game. I have a bit of a double feeling about this as a Belgian - on the one hand I think it's a good direction for the industry. We didn't have that crap a decade ago and I'll be happy to see it removed. OTOH, I hope they don't just remove content for the Belgian market as it'd potentially c…

> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in.

Why are you playing their games then?

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#12

Post by daemin »

mbel wrote: post #10
beezischillin wrote: post #4

Video game publishers have been trying consistently to implement a "less for more" attitude when it comes to their products. The whole lootbox trend on a whole was the peak of having their cake and eating it (wanting to "chase whales" like the free to play model but charging full price for the product). The only surprising thing about this is that there hasn't been a lot more push-back a way earlier.

> Video game publishers have been trying consistently to implement a "less for more" attitude when it comes to their products. Isn't maximizing profits just a natural consequence of having a for-profit business? It's not just evil video game publishers, everybody wants to sell less for more.

The problem is that in their pursuit of profit they are creating slot machines with the actual game on the side. Then they are crippling the game so that you have to use the slot machine to have any sense of fun while playing the game.

Therefore there are two choices:

Either they get regulated as other slot machine makers around the world, including being taxed as both a slot machine maker and as a slot machine operator.

Or alternatively just make a video game and sell that and not have to deal with all the regulation.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#14

Post by yAnonymous »

Ultimately, most publishers will probably handle it like Valve, who have found a brilliant workaround:

Show players the contents of the next box they buy, which makes it not gambling.

I hate it, but it's a very elegant solution to avoid any legal problems.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#15

Post by matwood »

chinathrow wrote: post #11
Insanity wrote: post #9

When playing Battlefield 5 beta last weekend, I was actually thinking about this. I'm wondering how they'll approach it in that game. I have a bit of a double feeling about this as a Belgian - on the one hand I think it's a good direction for the industry. We didn't have that crap a decade ago and I'll be happy to see it removed. OTOH, I hope they don't just remove content for the Belgian market as it'd potentially c…

> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?

Exactly. After the crap they pulled with NBA2k18 [1], I refuse to buy another ~EA~ 2K game. Apparently they made it ever so slightly better this year, but that's not enough.

[1] Up through 2k17 (that was on the edge though) you could make your custom player good just by playing the game. It might take some time, but it could be done. With 2k18, you needed to buy the game for $60 and then spend ~$100 to have anything near a playable character.

EDIT

Whoops, my micro transaction hate got ahead of my coffee drinking :) My point still stands though. If you don't like the way a company is doing something, don't buy their product.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#16

Post by pluma »

Buffodecon wrote: post #2

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I'm a libertarian and don't like regulations. On the second hand, these kinda regulations make sense.

"On the one hand, I'm a libertarian. On the other, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist."

Well, yeah. It's called nuance.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#17

Post by Insanity »

chinathrow wrote: post #11
Insanity wrote: post #9

When playing Battlefield 5 beta last weekend, I was actually thinking about this. I'm wondering how they'll approach it in that game. I have a bit of a double feeling about this as a Belgian - on the one hand I think it's a good direction for the industry. We didn't have that crap a decade ago and I'll be happy to see it removed. OTOH, I hope they don't just remove content for the Belgian market as it'd potentially c…

> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?

It was a free beta weekend, and it seemed like an interesting thing to try.

Now, it's not that DICE is per se a bad developer, but the deadlines pushed on by EA give rise to lots of bugs on release.(But, I've not played an EA/DICE game since BF3 so I could be wrong there, things might've changed.)

The games are usually playable some time after release.

And things like this: https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-... don't exactly make me warm up to actually buying an EA game.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#18

Post by Totoradio »

matwood wrote: post #15
chinathrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?

Exactly. After the crap they pulled with NBA2k18 [1], I refuse to buy another ~EA~ 2K game. Apparently they made it ever so slightly better this year, but that's not enough. [1] Up through 2k17 (that was on the edge though) you could make your custom player good just by playing the game. It might take some time, but it could be done. With 2k18, you needed to buy the game for $60 and then spend ~$100 to have anything…

NBA 2k is not an EA game

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#19

Post by blueagle7 »

matwood wrote: post #15
chinathrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is EA after all, a company I don't have a lot of faith in. Why are you playing their games then?

Exactly. After the crap they pulled with NBA2k18 [1], I refuse to buy another ~EA~ 2K game. Apparently they made it ever so slightly better this year, but that's not enough. [1] Up through 2k17 (that was on the edge though) you could make your custom player good just by playing the game. It might take some time, but it could be done. With 2k18, you needed to buy the game for $60 and then spend ~$100 to have anything…

NBA 2K18 isn't made by EA. It's made my 2K Sports. EA's NBA game is NBA Live.

Re: EA reportedly under criminal investigation in Belgium due to FIFA's loot boxes

#20

Post by Crpt774 »

Pretty sure Valve haven't actually removed lootboxes, they just show which common reward you will get if you are in Belgium, Rares are still random.

When you consider that the above is enough that Valve haven't been touched yet, it just feels like EA are digging their heels for the sake of it.

On the other hand, these are the same people who gave us BF2 and have been releasing a near identical game every year since the 90's so they may have just gotten lazy and not even noticed the law. Far too used to no effort money making that lot.

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