According to a recent verdict by Danish courts, loot boxes are in fact gambling and EA now has to pay €250,000/week (up to €15M) until they remove them from FIFA.
Fuck EA.
Fuck EA.
EA to Pay €15 Million Fine Over Lootboxes -
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It's terrible that governments are interfering with the artistic freedom of game developers to produce the highest quality entertainment.
If you don't like it don't buy it.
It's the nanny state gaming experience.
EA won't care. They make enough on lootboxes to pay this and come out ahead easily. Just the cost of doing business. What a toothless joke of a verdict to cap it at such a low number.
Not An Argument. That's like saying "if you don't like the movie, then don't see it". People can still be critical about the things they don't like. Hell, you can even be critical about the things you DO like, and if anything, that would make you more of a fan than the other fans that just gobble up cum spurts that their favorite companies shoot out with little to no effort (see Sonic The Hedgehog, Pokemon, and Super Mario as examples)
If there ever is a video game company that DESERVES every criticism it gets, it's EA. These fuckers were the forefront of normalizing microtransactions in video games. Shit like Fortnite and Overwatch might have started it, but it was EA that ran with it... to the point where they tried to cover their asses by telling the UK Parliament that they are ACKTHUALLY "Surprise Mechanics" just to get out of the hot shit they got themselves into in the first place.
It's one thing when a video game is just shit. It's another thing when companies purposefully remove chunks of the game to sell it back to you, and make the game purposefully grindy while sticking a store within the game to help you make your progress easier. This might be acceptable in mobile garbage (and even then I still think that's horseshit... all you have to do is look at the endless Gachashit out there to know the problem is getting worse), but not for a console game that you already spent $40-$60 on.
The other problem of "if you don't like it don't buy it" is that the people that DO buy it VASTLY outnumber the people that DON'T. It's why the term "whale" exists, and these companies know that, so they purposefully prey on these fuckers just to get more quick cash in their pockets. All of this is part of the reason why the video game industry is utter garbage these days. Companies like EA should be raked over the coals for their fucking stupid behavior.
So the headline was false.
I'm so surprised.
I'm so surprised.
Okay Stefan Molymeme.
I never said you can't criticize them. All I said was that if you don't like lootboxes then don't buy them or don't buy the game.
Don't lobby to ban or regulate something people obviously like when it has zero affect on anybody else. Especially claiming the "it's gambling" argument it's even more ridiculous since it's all virtual goods with value and not even remotely close to a casino with real world money.
Also these European countries that keep doing this shit aren't big markets in the first place, it only really matters a ton if a big place like Japan, US, or China does something as they're such big markets. And unless they put in extremely strict regulations they can likely change the loot boxes to meet them without much issue, this happened in China a while back if I remember correctly. This is why I think anyone whos end goal is to them classified as gambling to try and effectively ban them are very
. Either you get regulation that's too light thus allowing them to skirt around it to go after whales and shit thus leaving people unhappy. Or you end up with shit regulation so tight that it has ripple effects that hurt other sectors of the industry that people don't want messed with.
Gacha machines hook people in when they're just children, tagging along with their parents to shopping centres. From there, it only gets worse.
It's an ingenious long-term strategy, I must admit.
I hope this does lead to more of a push to eradicate real money gambling in games, gacha included. Of course, that’ll murder the entire mobile gaming market, which will be such a tragedy.
Putting addictive shit in games is nasty.
Putting addictive shit in games is nasty.
In isolation, yes. But, as Yong's video pointed out, their biggest loss here is that a government officially said they're wrong. They now look bad, there's now pressure for other governments to follow suit. EA officially has evidence against them that their practices are bad. They didn't lose a few mill here, they lost their immunity. The fuse has been lit, the clock is ticking, this practice is now volatile.
Don't think of it as a "fine", call it a "surprise donation!"
EA might use the fact they have studios in countries looking to enact similar legislation as leverage in such a circumstance. They could easily spin it as lootboxes being necessary to prop up those studios, maybe even bring up how they shut down most of their smaller non-American studios when the GFC hit.
I'm looking at this from a perspective of how they could try to justify lootboxes.
What started as an annoyance in some games has turned commonplace.
A large chunk of games, typically mainstream now incorporate some kind of monetization.
It's bad enough that EA (and 2K) has monopolized the sports game industry and has been complacent with their yearly releases. Literally to the point where they release a carbon copy year after year.
Now, there's a oft popular, advertised game mode that encourages spending and gambling as "player engagement" at the expense of transparency and gameplay.
The gambling comes with spending real world money for a CHANCE to win something. Problem is that the lootboxes in these games are unregulated with their odds of obtaining said item.
Even casinos are regulated in some way with their odds.
The ultimate issue with these lootboxes is that these games are rated PEGI 3, E for Everyone. That means anybody of any age can purchase these games and participate in this unregulated gambling activity in these video games.
There are stories of how players spent upwards of hundreds of dollars from these games because if these lootboxes. It's a psychological tactic that EA is aware to feed in these addictive tendencies.
So yes, I think EA, 2K and other companies need to be regulated on incorporating these practices in a medium as accessible as video games.
and then countries will laugh in their face because any contribution even a handful of vidya studios could have is not even chickenshit, and anyone half his brain knows the last thing EA is gonna do employ american devs (that want to get american wages and are under american law). netherlands are probably getting more money from the fines alone than taxes from those studios - if they even exist in the first place.
the only argument they could bring is that most purchases require a CC, and kids usually don't have credit cards, so the question remains how those kids get the money to get addicted to begin with. they're also usually not the whales (and the argument "they were conditioned to be one" is pretty ridiculous, if you're that retarded you'll never have the money to whale to begin as an adult).
but honestly, their "it's a surprise mechanic!" like it's some form of kinder surprise was retarded to begin with, and those are probably harder regulated than lootboxes anyway.
JektheDumbass
kiwifarms.net
How many billions have they made with loot boxes? Just seems like a slap on the wrist that they'll pay and carry on.
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Couldn't have happened to a more deserving company
