The various Ultimate Team modes in EA’s sports games now generate more income than brands like The Sims and Battlefield, so it’s no surprise to see the publisher double-down on lucrative loot boxes – despite the threat of government regulation. Both Belgium and the Netherlands recently declared the divisive “card collecting” format to be a form of gambling, but unsurprisingly the gaming giant disagrees.
“We’re going to continue pushing forward [with FIFA Ultimate Team],” EA bigwig Andrew Wilson told industry analysts during a conference call, listened to by Venture Beat. “We’re always thinking about our players. We’re always thinking about how to deliver these types of experiences in a transparent, fun, fair, and balanced way for our players – and we’ll continue to work with regulators on that.” Honestly, we reckon if the company really was listening to its players, it’d do away with them entirely.
But it’s not going to do that: the organisation is printing money right now, and it wants to protect a revenue stream that’s helping it to grow dramatically every year. “We’re working with all of the industry associations globally and with regulators in certain regions and territories,” Wilson continued. “Many of [the regulators] we’ve been working with for a long time, and they've evaluated and established that programs like FIFA Ultimate Team are not gambling.”
The executive doesn’t deem Ultimate Team to be gambling because you’re always guaranteed a certain number of cards, and they don’t hold any real-world monetary value. Of course, a quick Google search will direct you to multiple shady sites where you can trade your Ronaldo for real-world cash. “While we forbid the transfer of items and in-game currency outside of the games, we also actively seek to eliminate that where it’s going on in an illegal environment,” Wilson concluded.
So there you have it: EA’s not being deterred by government intervention, so it almost certainly doesn’t care what you write on ResetEra about loot boxes and its microtransaction models. At the end of the day, as long as it continues to rake in unfathomable sums of money from this kind of stuff, then why would it stop? The only way to change the company’s mind is by hitting it where it hurts – but far too many people enjoying spending money on Ultimate Team, so this is where we’re at.
[source venturebeat.com]
Comments 29
You know what, I accept that Ultimate Team is exploitative and honestly kinda gross, but I can't help but like the way it's setup. I feel like if you removed economy from it, it'd be nowhere near as satisfying.
I'm guessing I'm probably alone on this one?
It's mad that these big publishers employ people who probably have no interest in video games and instead arrive at work every day looking for any opportunity to make as much money as possible.
Wait, no it isn't!
I hope the goverment intervene and ban all lootbox, gaming will be better for it. Special edition, dlc, and mtx is enough.
I can translate - we are pumping a lot of money and marketing into lobbying to stop this being considered gambling.
I mean, of course any major business is going to go where the money is and there is money there. For the community, such as us, I think it is important to raise awareness that there is an exploitative element to such practices and equally lobby to make sure that gamers, parents and authorities are aware of this.
That said, I would go as far as to say that the EA sports titles, in general, appeal to a different type of gamer than ourselves. You can see this with the fact that no one really talks about MT's in sports games versus games like Destiny, Need for Speed, etc.
As a somewhat big fan of the FIFA series, from a gameplay perspective, I still have little to no interest in Ultimate Team and all that microtransaction stuff.
It clearly appeals to a lot of people though and makes them huge money so it's unlikely they'd dial back on it without serious intervention.
Loot boxs in Madden 19 -shivers-
@ShadowWarrior Ultimate Team in Madden is so ridiculously complicated. I like collecting the cards to create a team, but they make it way too confusing with all the 'Sets' and stuff.
I'm honestly surprised more "casual" players buy into it, because I can't wrap my head around it all.
"We're always thinking about our players."
Yeah, their wallets.
Luckily I'm a gamer who grew up in the NES, SNES, Amiga days so have no interest in online gaming. I really, really, really don't get the love of FUT. Is it fun? I like playing football games for realism. What's real about having Ronaldo and Messi playing for Rochdale or whatever? Dont' get it. Never will. Glad about it!
@get2sammyb
I've been a Madden Gamer since Madden 64. If EA ruins Madden with Lootboxs then i'm done. I've played Around with Ultimate Team but meeeh i never see why its so popular i'm a franchise Gm Mode guy.
so they can keep their lootboxes in FIFA after all they don't impact the game really and besides no one really cares about that series anymore anyway
it's when you do like you did with Battlefront 2, when you actively make the game hostile to players unless they use a crappy random lootbox system, THAT'S when it becomes an issue
like i said if you want to try and fleece some extra money from whales in a game series that is so old that it's been on 8 different generations of systems then so be it but there has to be a limit somewhere
@FullbringIchigo so they can keep their lootboxes in FIFA after all they don't impact the game really and besides no one really cares about that series anymore anyway
Sarcasm, right? At least i hope so
It's a shame that they're going to continue to nickel and dime us for all we're worth. I'll just have to give my money to different publishers instead.
I wonder when Andrew Wilson was a kid he watched Wall Street and saw Gordon Gekko say "greed is good" and took it literally.
Also loot boxes are gambling cos it plays on the same psychological tricks that make people addicts in the first place, plus people are paying for something where their not guaranteed to get anything new.
@get2sammyb Talking of Madden, there's an NFL media app on the store now.
@crimsontadpoles that's pretty much all we can do. I haven't bought a new EA or Activision game in a long time. Vote with your wallet/feet is pretty much the only thing a 'consumer' can do to get their point across.
I’ve quit buying EA games. Plenty of other options.
@General_Spiller yeah, although it is a very old game series so i'm sure many people have moved on from it by now
Really working on taking back their old title as "America's s most hated company"...they were just at number 5 last year, still more hated than the obviously evil Monsanto or Facebook (and the only videogame company on the list).
would be an awsome wakeup call for them,if the E3 audience boo's them off when they walk up the stage.
now that would be a viral youtube vid i would love to see.
it's not that their recent conferences have been good anyway.
Dollars are green
Violets are blue
EA is greedy
Tell me something new.
Because they're scum.
"The executive doesn’t deem Ultimate Team to be gambling because you’re always guaranteed a certain number of cards, and they don’t hold any real-world monetary value". if the cards are randomised, how is this not a form of gambling?. if people could buy a pack (or card) with exactly the items they want/need, they wouldn't keep paying for pack after pack 'hoping' to get messi or ronaldo, or that 99-game contract... this isn't fundamentally different in psychology from paying for lottery ticket after lottery ticket hoping for the right numbers to come up.
I only ever play career mode in FIFA, so I am not affected by EA's money-grabbing loot boxes. The day they introduce them into the career mode is the day I stop playing it.
@jdv95 Won't happen because they're going to surround themselves with "influencers".
I'd agree that FUT isn't really a Lootbox system, and to be honest its presence in FIFA doesn't really bother me. I buy FIFA for the traditional football game, and have only ever once even bothered to look at FUT.
I've never been interested in card games, so that aspect simply holds no interest for me. And since it has no bearing on the traditional part of the game, EA will never get any money from me for it. As others have said, if they integrate it into the main game in some way which requires its use, I'll simply stop buying FIFA. As it happens, FIFA 18 was the first time I've bought the game in 5 years anyway.
@get2sammyb aka crappy youtubers
i'm not gonna watch their conference anyway.
Why am I not surprised?
They will reverse this practice soon, internal or otherwise.
I've played mainly the NHL variant, but I haven't sunk much money in to it. I deleted my team once and bought 2-3 packs just to catch up my previous team. Other than that, I've never felt the need to buy packs as a) I never play online b) coins are pretty easy to come by . Same goes for FIFA - never felt the need to sink money in.
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