EA Says FIFA Players Actually ‘Love’ The Game’s Controversial Loot Boxes
Screenshot: EA / W2SPlays / Kotaku
Four years after Star Wars: Battlefront II’s disastrous launch galvanized the world in opposition to loot packing containers, EA continues to be defending the exploitative microtransaction in its crown jewel: FIFA. In-game card packs don’t simply make the writer billions, EA swears that gamers love them too.
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“We wholeheartedly believe that Ultimate Team and FUT Packs, which have been part of the game for more than a decade, are a part of FIFA that players love,” EA instructed Eurogamer in a press release yesterday. “Fans love that the game reflects the real-world excitement and strategy of building and managing a squad. Giving players the choice to spend if they want to is fair.”
The writer’s newest endorsement of loot packing containers comes because it prepares to launch FIFA 23, the final recreation within the collection with the FIFA license earlier than it’s rebranded as EA Sports FC. EA confirmed to Eurogamer that FUT Packs will return within the new recreation this fall, an announcement that comes a month after the UK authorities revealed it will not regulate loot packing containers as playing regardless of individuals who use them being extra more likely to expertise “gambling, mental health, financial and problem gaming-related harms.”
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For those that aren’t conscious, Ultimate Team is FIFA’s hottest on-line mode. It revolves round making a dream group consisting of gamers acquired from opening card packs. Higher-rated stars like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and previous icon Pelé carry out higher in matches, and are additionally extraordinarily laborious to get. The firm calls it an harmless, enjoyable “surprise mechanic,” and has maintained up to now that it’s positively not playing.
EA says it encourages gamers to earn packs by enjoying the sport, but it surely nonetheless provides them the choice to purchase them outright for actual cash. Given the aggressive nature of the mode, and the truth that there’s a whole market round YouTubers and influencers glorifying pack opening looking for the rarest soccer stars, it’s not laborious to see why that is likely to be a nasty thought.
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While some large recreation corporations have seen dips of their enterprise this yr, EA has continued flying excessive, largely due to the continued success of its loot box-based Ultimate Team modes. EA instructed Eurogamer that just one in 10 gamers buys FUT Packs with actual cash, however the income speaks for itself. In 2020, the mode, featured in Madden and NHL as properly, earned the corporate $1.62 billion. We don’t know the way a lot it earned final yr, nonetheless, as a result of EA determined to omit the determine in its report for 2021. It’s no surprise, then, that EA continues to run interference for the controversial mechanic years after many different main video games have dropped it.
As Eurogamer factors out, there stays regulatory strain in Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, and different European international locations, the place FIFA is hottest, to crack down on playing mechanics in video games. In Belgium, the place loot packing containers have been outright banned, EA eliminated them from the sport.
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