The developers of FIFA 20 Electronic Arts (EA) announced that it made almost $1 billion dollars from sales of the game alone in the last quarter of 2019.
The receipts were an all time high for the California based company! With total transactions up 27% than the last year.
In another news for EA, the company has been hit by two lawsuits by French prosecutors. This is over the concept of loot box style transactions.
If you are confused, don’t worry we will break it down for you! A loot box is a virtual item that can be redeemed to obtain a random selection of other virtual items. These include weapons, armor or customization of avatars. Players buy or gain the boxes during play, and then can buy keys to redeem them. The box contents are unknown at the time of purchase.
L’Equipe, the French daily reported that the suits filed were specifically targeted towards the FIFA 20 Ultimate Team mode. Fans, spend real cash to buy a type of loot box, FUT packs in this case. Which provides players a chance to unpack some rare and legendary players to assemble the team.
Paris based lawyers Karim Morand-Lahouazi and Victor Zagury have filed suits from their respective clients. They argued that FUT is ultimately anything but a mode of gambling hidden behind other aspects of the game.
“Buying packs is nothing more than a bet. The logic of a casino has entered their homes,” Zagury told L’Equipe.
Football superstars like Pele, Maradona, Henry, Gerrad are put as the rewards for unlocking FUT packs; thereby enticing players to spend on these boxes. Zagury’s client spent over $633 in five months in hope of unpacking one of these players. But the best he could get was Napoli’s Kostas Manolas, a player he hadn’t even heard of.
The developers of this game mode have created an illusionary and particularly addictive system,” explained Zagury. “Today, an 11 or 12-year-old can, without restriction, play FUT and spend money because there is no parental control system in this mode.”
His client, a 32 year old driver had fallen behind in his rent payments because of his addiction towards the game.
The claims arising from France aren’t surprising to hear as the game has already been banned in Belgium and The Netherlands.
EA on its part has strongly denied claims but has previously been forced to modify its game in Belgium . Holland too has forced to company to modify if it wishes to stay in the market.
The UK Gambling Commission voted in favor of the company! It stated that it wasn’t a form of Gambling as there was no way to monetize the prizes.
