Posted June 20, 20196 yr EA: Our Loot Boxes Are Actually 'Surprise Mechanics' That Are 'Quite Ethical' KOTAKU.COM Given that 2017's Star Wars Battlefront II is broadly considered the tipping point in an anti-loot-box conversation that has recently led to a loot box bill in the United States senate, you might be forgiven for thinking that Electronics Arts games have loot boxes. Not so, says its VP of legal and government affairs;… OK this article is making the rounds. I find it rather humorous and it shows how out of touch EA is with it's community of players. It appears they are marketing towards 6 year olds. She then elaborated on what exactly that means and why so-called “surprise mechanics” are just like blind-packed toys. “If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells lots of toys, and you do a search for surprise toys, what you’ll find is that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. And so, it’s something that’s been part of toys for years, whether it’s Kinder Eggs, or Hatchimals, or LOL Surprise. We do think the way that we have implemented these kinds of mechanics in FIFA—[which] of course is our big one, our FIFA Ultimate Team and our packs—is actually quite ethical and quite fun. Enjoyable to people.”
June 21, 20196 yr Sounds like the same argument a casino would make for a slot machine. The problem is these "surprise" mechanics are just forms of gambling where the house always wins. It's predatory especially when duplicates are involved. Collectible card games have used random booster packs for decades and it is just awful. Spend $100 to maybe get the card you want or buy it from someone who did find it for 8x more. Worse yet, the luckier folks or the ones with deeper pockets are stacked to win with rarer finds. The mechanic just sucks. Its existence and people's complicity in it does not make it ethical. It is plain old maximizing profits by preying on those more inclined to gamble. Good fair sport or gaming shouldn't just be about who has the deepest pockets or the luckiest roll. Let's play chess not craps.
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