EA Still Believes in Loot Boxes, Will 'Push Forward' With Their Use (variety.com)

Electronic Arts will "push forward" with loot boxes in its future video games, despite admitting that all loot boxes are gambling. From a report: "As you might imagine, we're working with all the industry associations globally and with regulators in various jurisdictions and territories, many of whom we've been working with for some time and have evaluated and established that programs like 'FIFA Ultimate Team' are not gambling," Wilson said. "And we don't believe that 'FIFA Ultimate Team' -- all loot boxes are gambling."

The issue of loot boxes, a form of microtransaction that has players spending real money to purchase a virtual box and then open it to discover what's inside it, came to a head late last year with the release of EA's "Star Wars Battlefront II" which featured a form of the box that players felt was costly and unfair. EA later pulled the form of microtransaction and completely retooled it before reintroducing a more accepted form of loot box to the game.

While the debate continues over loot boxes and whether they are a form of illegal gambling, Wilson explained Tuesday why EA believes they're not. "Firstly, players always receive a specified number of items in each ['FIFA Ultimate Team'] box. And secondly, we don't provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items in virtual currency for real-world money. And there's no way we can make value assign to FUT items in game currency. And while we forbid the transfer of items of in-the-game currency outside, we also actively seek to eliminate that where it's going on in an illegal environment, and we work with regulators in various jurisdictions to achieve that."

Comments

It shouldn't matter if they're gambling or not

[scourfish]

People can choose to simply not play the game.

Re:It shouldn't matter if they're gambling or not

[swillden]

It's important to include in your passionate defense of liberty that you also don't believe in any form of social safety net. If consenting adults are allowed to engage in behavior which is highly likely to harm them in some way such that the taxpayer ends up needing to pay to keep them alive or off the streets then that's a problem.

This is, indeed, the single largest problem with social safety nets: they provide a plausible justification for imposing regulations that limit freedom merely because in some cases people who exercise the freedom may end up requiring more support. This argument says that any country that has universal health care should ban smoking, alcohol and all other drugs.

The right answer, IMO, is to recognize that safety nets and freedom are both social goods and that the potential negative interactions between them are just part of what it costs to have them. You can avoid those negative interactions by discarding one or the other (or both), but the result will be less happiness overall than if you just accept the inefficiency.

Jesse James...

[Austerity Empowers]

...believed in bank and train robbery right up to the bitter end, when someone else who believed murdering him for bounty money was ok. The trouble with belief lies in its disconnection with reality. I don't know (or care) if loot boxes are gambling, I do know they suck and undermine games.

Not gambling

[RandomFactor]

I find the argument that loot boxes are implemented in a way that is 'not gambling' if you can't sell the results for real world money, specious.

Time is money.

If a loot box will potentially save players hours of time getting to some goal, then the value of the loot box is the time it will save. The fact a player can't sell it to someone else is irrelevant.

Any non-cosmetic lootbox mechanic is gambling and should be regulated entirely as such.

Re:Glad I quit when I did

[Jahoda]

Ok edgy badass grandpa. Video games are stupid and it's a sign of your superior taste and intellect to not play one for 22 years. :Eyeroll: