EA’s implementation of loot boxes has come under a lot of fire, even relative to the general outcry against the mechanic. The pushback against Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot boxes was so intense that EA reworked the entire system, and the wild popularity of FIFA Ultimate Team means that it receives scrutiny even from watchdog groups and governmental organizations (even the mainstream media picked up on this).
Kerry Hopkins, EA’s VP of legal and government affairs, insists that the company’s randomized purchases are not loot boxes but rather “surprise mechanics.” In an oral evidence session with the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, Hopkins compares the mechanics to surprise toys, which have been around “for years, whether it’s Kinder Eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise.”
In response to several questions from Scottish National Party MP, Brendan O’Hara, Hopkins says: “We do think the way that we have implemented these kinds of mechanics – and FIFA, of course, is our big one, our FIFA Ultimate Team, and our packs is actually quite ethical and quite fun, quite enjoyable to people.”
“We do agree with the UK gambling commission, the Australian gambling commission, and many other gambling commissions that they aren’t gambling, and we also disagree that there’s evidence that shows it leads to gambling. Instead, we think it’s like many other products that people enjoy in a healthy way, and like the element of surprise.”
Obviously, that also means that EA wholeheartedly disagrees with the anti-loot box stance taken by Dutch and Belgian regulators. “They decided – the regulator, not the courts – decided that under their local law, these mechanics under certain circumstances violate the law.”
The UK government’s investigation on gaming was announced earlier this year, and it concerns much more than just loot boxes — everything from game addiction to the ways the government can support the VR industry are included on that list. Whether any legislative action results from these investigations remains to be seen … but one can hope.
While that’s going on in the UK, back here in the US the loot box bill has been making its rounds in the US Senate and has been gathering supporters. Two Democratic Senators have signed on to Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s anti-loot box bill, providing bipartisan support for the proposed legislation that would fine publishers and game distributors over both blind loot boxes and “pay to win” mechanics.
Hawley, who is a US Republican Senator representing Missouri, released the full text of the “Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act” back on the 23rd of May … along with Democratic co-sponsors Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, which officially made it a bipartisan issue.
Markey has described the gaming environment of today as “an online gauntlet for children,” and said that its “inherently manipulative” game features, such as making progression easier with the purchase of in-game time-savers “should be out of bounds.”
“Congress must send a clear warning to app developers and tech companies: Children are not cash cows to exploit for profit,” Blumenthal stated.
The bill itself gets quite specific about what does and does not constitute a fineable, pay-to-win transaction in games. Cosmetic items like weapon skins and character costumes are fine, but anything that offers a competitive advantage in PvP, of course, would be a fineable offense (not just for the game’s publishers but for distributors like Valve as well). The bill also outlaws selling time-savers … the kind you often find in Ubisoft’s single-player games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
This situation is huge, and can actually shake the gaming industry to its core if companies like EA and the ESA don’t back down — as the ESA and ESRB were created to make sure stuff like this doesn’t happen and that the government didn’t have a say in what could be made as a game. However, if they don’t stop what they are doing (which looks like they won’t), games could change for the better … or for possibly worse.
Stay tune to GamingLyfe for more info as it comes available!
