Tuesday, September 11th 2018
Electronic Arts Will Not Remove Loot Boxes from FIFA 18 in Direct Disregard to Belgian Law
Well, well, well. It was only a few days ago that we reported how 2K was being brazen about asking their game players to talk to the Belgian government about keeping loot boxes in their NBA series and turns out Electronic Arts (EA) decided they could do one worse. Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad published a story on how the Belgian Gaming Commission is preparing to take a legal stance against EA for refusing to remove loot boxes from FIFA 18 wherein their game buyers could purchase player packs with real money and not know what they receive in return. As if that was not bad enough, EA has doubled down with FIFA 19 by having the same "feature" again but with an increased roster to further tune the loot box chances against the customer. Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA, commented that these loot boxes are not gambling as players know exactly how many objects they receive.
As it stands, the Belgian Gaming Commission has sent an official report to EA about their refusal to comply with the act that has been ratified since. The report states that anyone who does not conform will face the risk of legal prosecution, and it is now up to the Brussels public prosecutor's office to decide whether or not they want to charge EA accordingly. EA, meanwhile, is prepared to fight this in court and a judgement here would set a massive precedent to what is allowed in game microtransactions in the future. EA remains the only major game publisher to not make changes as directed, with Valve, Activision Blizzard and 2K, having done so before- albeit begrudgingly in some cases. Loot boxes contributed a major part of EA's annual revenue last year, with some citing online sales to be as much as 67% (which includes other forms of purchases, not just microtransactions). No wonder then that EA would like to keep milking this cow as much as they can, even if that means less milk to everyone else.
Source:
Het Nieuwsblad
As it stands, the Belgian Gaming Commission has sent an official report to EA about their refusal to comply with the act that has been ratified since. The report states that anyone who does not conform will face the risk of legal prosecution, and it is now up to the Brussels public prosecutor's office to decide whether or not they want to charge EA accordingly. EA, meanwhile, is prepared to fight this in court and a judgement here would set a massive precedent to what is allowed in game microtransactions in the future. EA remains the only major game publisher to not make changes as directed, with Valve, Activision Blizzard and 2K, having done so before- albeit begrudgingly in some cases. Loot boxes contributed a major part of EA's annual revenue last year, with some citing online sales to be as much as 67% (which includes other forms of purchases, not just microtransactions). No wonder then that EA would like to keep milking this cow as much as they can, even if that means less milk to everyone else.
31 Comments on Electronic Arts Will Not Remove Loot Boxes from FIFA 18 in Direct Disregard to Belgian Law
Let's pray the EU backs this up and kills it off for good.
2 Loot boxes
3 Trash support
4 Trash Anticheat,almost every multiplayer title is FULL of cheats. (Battlefield - Star Wars)
5 Fascism in forums.Covering up their dirt by censoring or deleting posts they don't like.They even ban people...
6 BF3 -BF4 specific, Most if not all servers not owned by EA,which means the admin can troll and ban anyone for his amusement and EA has no control over it.
.....complete waste of money