The state of Hawaii announces action to address predatory practices at Electronic Arts and others

Thats part of my 5 step process in the platform I am working on.

• Dont buy microtransactions.
• Buy Used.
• Dont let other people be dumb.
• Victory.

You're breaking my heart with these lootboxes and microtransactions EA.

@Chutebox: I agree,the game is rated T,kids younger than that should not be playing the game..folks should make parents responsible and not just the companies.

So then stores selling the games should have to card people to verify age before they sell it similar to how they sell alcohol or cigarettes. Back decades ago, anyone could buy those items, until pressure caused rules to be put into place. We're just seeing that pressure now about these kinds of things, where companies prey on underage kids who do have access to their parents accounts or parents that don't know the material they are getting into. It's not just 'parents' fault, and its not just 'retailers' fault, but a bit of both and restrictions need to be put into place at both ends where possible.

@Phazevariance: If the parents are dumb enough to give kids access to their account without supervision, it is 100% their fault.

And there are restrictions in place on the parents end.

Yeah it's time this stuff is regulated. As long as gambling is illegal these lootboxes should be. It's like they don't notice it, because it's virtual, but there's no difference.

EA Games: Challenge Everything

To

EA Gambling: Charge Everything

This goes a bit deeper than the free market and "just don't buy it" logic.

These loot-boxes are carefully engineered and implemented (through attractive animations, sounds, rewarding feedback, and intermittent rewards given that are far more valuable than others so as to keep that "maybe next time!" impulse going) so that whenever they are opened they help foment compulsive tendencies in consumers to further predatory capitalistic practices. The debate's ongoing as to whether loot-boxes constitute gambling or not as you can't "cash out" and take money back, but I believe that to be aside the main issue that bothers so many. It’s the underlying psychology and tactics that makes gambling so addictive that are very similar to what's seen in this game that’s so bothersome.

Considering gaming is largely an industry embraced by the young (especially with a license such as Star Wars which is loved by all ages), it should surprise no one that legislation is being humored. This isn't necessarily about the free market, it's more about a psychologically predatory and exploitative approach that targets a license that all ages embrace. That's what people and politicians are concerned over. If this were a game strictly marketed to adults, I doubt there'd be such an outcry by politicians. Gamers, sure, and then the "just don't buy it" reasoning would hold more weight.

But we're talking Star Wars here. Kids adore it, they consume it, and EA is preying on that by leveraging practices that underlie gambling's appeal and effectiveness. Do I like the state coming in and legislating that? I don’t care for any legislation in gaming, but when it comes to fucking with a product kids love and use by infusing every aspect of it with disgusting psychological manipulation only to fill their pockets, something needs to be done. EA is scum to do this, and it just demonstrates the lengths they will go to rake in the profit at the abandonment of any and all moral or ethical considerations.

@MirkoS77: Meh. I don't agree. Even if it is gambling (which it isn't) parents need to police their own kids. if you are going to go that far with it, all games use this technique. Pokémon and Amiibos are just as bad but theres no huge rabble over them.

I think Battlefront 2 is getting all this backlash mainly because of Star Wars geeks who are mostly adults.

No, not all games utilize this particular technique, and Pokemon and Amiibos aren't even remotely similar in structure or execution.

And pfff to not gambling.

Casinos offer perks when you lose, free drinks, free food, a free go at the roulette table to supplement the overwhelming failure, an emotional padding tactic to make you feel like you aren't being screwed, to give a sense of reward to keep you returning.

Exact same shit here. Yea, you won't get the best thing in the world, but here's some peanuts, come back again after your lunch break, Jimmy.

Seems pretty extreme, and at same time, should we expect same action against companies that sell baseball card packs, card games with randomized booster packs like Magic the Gathering, or Pokemon? I mean, really no different and people can waste fortunes on that stuff too.

EA doesn't give a shit. They built their business on pushing boundaries of "acceptable" practices in gaming. This is just a set-back in their plan for vacuuming all the money out of their customer's pockets.

I bet you anything that they'll keep going with this garbage, just try harder and harder to hide it. And I'm calling it here now, just because I heard about it a couple days ago, EA is going to buy the LOTR game license once Christopher Tolkien gives it up.

@foxhound_fox:

I'm not so sure. They are going to become the scape goat for negativity amongst these sorts of practices within the console space. For example when another company(s) institutes a similar tactic, the EA brand will be tagged along.

Legislation against underage gambling in video games would be nice. And an investigation into why the ESRB concluded that these lootboxes aren't considered "gambling" despite them fitting the goddamned dictionary definition:

Gamble: "to stake or risk money, or anything of value, on the outcome of something involving chance"

You have a chance of getting an item of value from a lootbox. You pay money to get a lootbox. Thus, it's gambling. This is one of those boundaries that company's need to be prevented from crossing. It's a very slippery slope to fully monetizing every aspect of gaming, and locking everything behind a paywall (just look at how far mobile games go these days by locking stuff behind paywalls).

The fear is that not buying it won't solve it this time because the amount of money made is so astronomical. But yes let's not buy it. It does help.

I think what we can hope for is that it will affect their ability to go public with something. So an appearance at a public event may become questionable for them if they continue these practices. Like going to E3. That's a big one next year. And I bet many publishers appearing at E3 will think twice now about announcing a game with microtransactions, and I hope that the critics will listen very carefully at whatever EA dares to say at E3, and that they will ask every single publisher that announces anything what the microtransactions will be like. That, plus the boycotts could potentially do something.

I suppose those are sort of similar from exploiting the "collector's" mentality some have, but at least there you are getting a physical product. Plus baseball card's are driven by actual rarity, not "virtual" rarity. LIke some guys rookie card may have ended up valuable because he blows up in real life 4 or 5 years later. Not necessarily because the company intentional made that card "rare" through any type of manipulation. Pokemon or Magic the Gathering might be a bit more close to this loot box stuff because it's pure fantasy. It's all made up. Just think of how incredibly lame it is to buy packs and packs of cards looking for one special card that was intentionally made rare. That sort of is like gambling. In all cases they are counting on their customers to be morons.

@KungfuKitten:

All you have to do is look back to Microsofts unveil of the xbox one X. These practices are WAY worse under the eyes of consumer. E3 and similar events are often public access filled by gamers--the people buying the product. Imagine EA presenting the next big budget game and being booed off stage. Imagine this happening with every game they show. EA used YouTube to hype NBA Live. They recognized the significance of such an outlet. Now, imagine that same outlet bring these practices to the front every time a game is revealed...

TCG's aren't completely randomized. Each pack is from a particular series (with a set list that it draws from, all of which are available to see before buying), and they have a particular amount of cards of different rarities from that set. And games like Magic (I haven't played the Pokemon TCG since it came out), the booster packs are designed to be played in a draft format. There is little to no value in buying packs or boxes to resell the cards.

EDIT: Also, there is a strong secondary market where you can resell all the cards you buy. Lootboxes are a one-time features that's locked to your account.

This is getting out of hand. I disagree with all these craps countries getting into. This isnt if they care about "gambling" ... this is that they dont want money getting outside of state/country without any kind of tax because it has an impact in their state/country economy overall.

We talking about billions in all kind of microtransactions per year. So even if we call all that bad and gambling and evil ... because goverments dont want for you to buy a loot box ... then they need to make a law or something about it so if im 21+ i can buy any kind of lootbox i want or something.

Thats the whole purpose of this and not to protect innocent kids from gambling when at the same time kids are all over drugs, alcohol, smoking and all kind of shits all over the world. This is so hypocritical and fucked up i dont even have words to describe it.

Also who is paying when a 12 years old kid decides to buy a lootbox online ? Where this youngster finds money from ? Parents that is. Wtf parents doing ? They have no sense of what is happening or they giving their cards to their 12 years old just like that OR if the dont , they letting pass by the fact that kids "stealing" from them money to buy whatever ? Nice parents, well done.

Everyone hating EA right now actually including the biggest publishers all over the world like Blizzard, Activision, Valve etc.

But we all know why this is happening... too much money leaving the countries/states for .... all kind of microtransactions so they trying to fight that in the name of gambling.

Online Robin Hoods saving small kids from gambling issues ... lol.

EA forgot games are targeted for Childrens who got no source of income. I remember another news some time when a child spend 8000$ on FIFA lootboxes, after outcry from dad EA refunded the money.

It feels a little like evoking Ragnarok to save our home. It's just that in this case, their motivations are not important. If they are just getting involved for tax income, our odds of teaching these publishers a lesson only improve.

If they don't get involved then EA & Activsion & Co will ruin AAA gaming, and if they do get involved our chances seem slim, but at least we'll have a chance. Either way the gate has opened and we'll have to wait and see which of these monstrosities will win.

I agree but at the same time what goverments and all those guys trying to do is not to save kids from gambling issues rather than having a piece of the pie... and this pie is huge beleive me we talking about billions here.

I understand your logic but on the other hand do you sincerely beleive that if somehow all those states and countries fighting lootboxes now had a good, fat piece of this multibillion pie they would even care for kids or something ? How comes they care now about gambling issues when this kind of industry is huge and not some years back when industry was vastly smaller ? Weird ha ? Dont you think ?

In the end of the day as i said before, its up to parents. If they SUCK ASS and their 10-13-14 years old kids stealing their cards to buy online its not a gambling issue. Its PARENTAL issue if you get what i mean. If they letting a kid use money without any knowledge what is happening its on them, not kids. So what we need to focus here is not if lootboxes is a form of gambling but if parents are idiots. Because some other kids might use money for something way more dangerous than video games ... drugs or guns or you name it.

drugs r cool, cuz we can refresh every morning, even alky

guns r cool, cuz we don't need bulletz

pz to the Wild We$t

You act as if these practices haven't been raking in monumental profits until Battlefront II hit the stores. Monetization schemes have been hugely profitable for years, if legislation is solely to attain a piece of that pie, why wait until now? You also act as if political and government initiative hasn't been humored in other aspects of gaming in protection of certain demographics. The ESRB? Not a government regulated agency I realize, but assuredly one whose impetus for its establishment was borne from attention from politicians and the threat for regulation if step weren't taken towards a regulatory agency's creation. Of what profit did that bring?

Who's to know what will be done about this, but there's something distinctly insidious and predatory in Battlefront II's implementation of these practices above others that we've thus far seen, that as mentioned, have existed in the desire to monetize upon games further for quite some time. This has made not only politicians in this country raise their eyebrows, but has other countries getting into it as well. It's not just the profits, but also lies within the manner of it. Something about Battlefront has been the straw that broke the camel's back, and I'd think if it was driven purely by a desire to profit, it wouldn't be waiting nearly so long for that straw to drop but would've been far more eager earlier on.

I agree with everything you said , im not trying to defend EA here by all means. Im just questioning alot of things outside this BS.

@MirkoS77: underneath all this fake drama the crux of the matter is people griping about having to put in work in a game to get stuff. If you like the game playing it shouldn’t really be an issue. Complaining about the amount of time it takes to me seems moot.

Look at games like Overwatch or Destiny. The average actual fan of those games has 100s of hours played.

Just like the QQers complain about not having things, I think the dedicated players getting rewards others don’t have is good.

To me this loot box rabbling is the equivalent of parents wanting participation trophies. The same type of QQing happened with gear in WoW and it basically ruined the game. Catering to the complainers and making raids ezmode was the start of the demise of it.

I still haven’t seen a demonstration of this being pay2win in any of these games people are losing it over.

And the argument of unlocking everything would cost Thousands is kinda meh too. It’s not meant for you to have everything. None of this cosmetic stuff was promised as part of the base game.

@oflow: So you don't have a maximum amount of hours that you enjoy a game? If they set the minimum amount of hours you have to put in to '100s of hours' to get cool stuff, that's not going to make anyone but the most hardcore fans happy. Are only hardcore fans allowed to enjoy your games? You don't think progression can be too slow? So if it took 100 years for you to level up in WoW you think that would be good game design? Cause I would really not like that.

Giving rich people an advantage is not great game design. Does it need to give you a victory screen on a platter to call it p2w? I thought p2w was paying for an advantage, making it easier to win. That is what happens in BF2, in Destiny 2, in Shadow of War. I can screenshot it for you. It's demonstrably giving people advantages for being rich.

Nobody cares about what they promise. They are allowed to try and sell the worst game that they can make. People just want a full game for full price. If you can't get most cool things in a game, it just sucks. It's a negative, a downvote, a lower score, a complaint as it should be. I get the idea of rewarding big fans of a game but this is not rewarding people, it's punishing people as the items are obtainable with money. It's just saying 'you're not rich enough to get what you want.' It's designed to make you want everything, but not designed to make you earn everything? Bad game design.

I get that they are allowed to do these things legally, but it's really bad. They're not making the games better. They're not making people happy. They're using very unethical game design to annoy their customers.