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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

#71

Post by kakarot »

This is a growing problem in the gaming industry.

I've been boycotting EA since the dawn of modern DLC with Battlefield: Bad Company, which was 10 years ago.

Every single gamer who has not stood on this side of the line since then is a part of the problem.

If you have purchased a single EA game directly from the publisher in the last decade, instead of aftermarket, then you have absolutely no right to complain about loot boxes because we live in a time where all of the information about EA's destruction of the gaming industry has been freely available for anyone to find.

You chose to feed the beast for your own selfish desires and now you act like it's someone else's fault that the beast has gotten so big.

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

#72

Post by efdee »

Spooky23 wrote: post #69
efdee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having the ability to bet is freedom. Being seduced (avoiding the word 'forced' here) into betting under the guise of a game... not so much.

I don’t see the nuance between a loot box and a slot machine designed to extract $50-$100/hr from a bettor.

There is not much of a difference. The question is, did your $60 buy you a game, or a program that is designed to just make you buy as many loot boxes as possible?

If the games are no more than glorified casinos, they should be regulated as such.

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

#73

Post by molf »

village-idiot wrote: post #68
kgilpin wrote: post #66

I’m the parent of a teenager who has struggled with an unhealthy obsession with features like this. A kid who is 14 or 15 is able to intellectually understand how to use these game systems, but at the same time he or she is often lacking the type of sophisticated understanding that an adult would have (e.g. that gambling can be addictive and therefore restraint and self-observation is required). They greatly overesti…

This is another area where the arbitrariness of the 18 year majority limit is exposed: 18 year olds are not neurologically adults. That doesn’t happen until like 25-29.

Agreed; this should be made illegal entirely – this mechanic benefits no one except the game publisher.

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

#74

Post by jpz »

petercooper wrote: post #61

I'm a FIFA player and this is a complex situation. "Packs" in FIFA are not solely used for cosmetic items but for actual virtual players with distinct play characteristics. EA are trying to turn FIFA into a eSports game (see the recent FIFA eWorld Cup) and the majority of play takes place in the "Ultimate Team" mode. To get the high calibre players you'd use to build up your experience and reputation in UT you either…

It’s not just the Belgians, if it stands up there that will be the thin edge of the wedge.

The issue is the one of random drops for real money. It’s easy to see that has a gambling element to it.

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

#75

Post by petercooper »

jpz wrote: post #74
petercooper wrote: post #61

I'm a FIFA player and this is a complex situation. "Packs" in FIFA are not solely used for cosmetic items but for actual virtual players with distinct play characteristics. EA are trying to turn FIFA into a eSports game (see the recent FIFA eWorld Cup) and the majority of play takes place in the "Ultimate Team" mode. To get the high calibre players you'd use to build up your experience and reputation in UT you either…

It’s not just the Belgians, if it stands up there that will be the thin edge of the wedge. The issue is the one of random drops for real money. It’s easy to see that has a gambling element to it.

Yes, it's easy to drop money on packs and either get a pack of duds or (less often) an amazing player. I tend to get quite lucky spending a few hundred pounds in total, but there are videos of YouTubers dropping £1000+ in a day and barely getting anything interesting.

A workaround would be for EA to simply officially sell the game's "coins" instead of packs in affected territories.. but then you'd have the opposite effect of players there getting a major advantage :-D

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

#76

Post by Flow »

chupasaurus wrote: post #54
Insanity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-g…

The first year of BF4 after release was pretty much a very long open beta.

And another thing I hate about the yearly releases of CoD and BF: The previous versions more or less die when the new ones are released.

As someone who play games on macOS, the delay before the Mac/Linux versions are released makes it so when you get to play the games, most of your friends play the next version or something else. I've stopped buying games like CoD and BF because of this.

It seems only Blizzard and Valve understand they can keep people playing the same games for decades with little investment.

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

#77

Post by kgilpin »

molf wrote: post #73
village-idiot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is another area where the arbitrariness of the 18 year majority limit is exposed: 18 year olds are not neurologically adults. That doesn’t happen until like 25-29.

Agreed; this should be made illegal entirely – this mechanic benefits no one except the game publisher.

That totally works for me as well :-)

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

#78

Post by dawnerd »

chupasaurus wrote: post #54
Insanity wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-g…

The first year of BF4 after release was pretty much a very long open beta.

BF3 was pretty painful too if I remember correctly. Horrible hitboxes and lag.

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

#79

Post by yAnonymous »

falcor84 wrote: post #31
yAnonymous wrote: post #14

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.

Not being familiar with their system myself, I have to ask - does this imply that there's 2nd order gambling? I mean, the same gambling "kick" then arises from seeing what they would get after paying for the following big, right? I suppose they could also make the boxes transparent all the way down, but that would just shift the gamble to the account creation phase. Oh, or is it just the exact same boxes for everyone…

The box system is exactly the same as before, only that you can see the contents of the next box. It's very easy to implement and, as you pointed out, changes pretty much nothing. The gamble is still there, but not in the box you pay for.

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

#80

Post by yAnonymous »

dtech wrote: post #23
yAnonymous wrote: post #14

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.

That seems like a hack that won't hold up in court. Now it's still loot box gambling, but with the n+1 th box instead.

I actually think it will hold up quite comfortably, as no court will be able to tell when exactly it starts being gambling.
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