Several media outlets dedicated to gaming journalism have noticed an EA spokesperson attempting to re-designate loot boxes as ‘surprise mechanics’. This strange, new nomenclature was uttered by the VP of legal and governmental affairs at EA, Kerry Hopkins, when asked if loot boxes are an ethical feature of video games.
Hopkins was responding at the time to a question posed by a representative of the Digital Culture, Media, and Sport Committee at a recent hearing in England. Both EA and Epic Games were given the chance to defend loot boxes in their games against the widespread claims that their inclusion encourages unregulated gambling.
EA’s VP then stated that the loot boxes can be likened to children’s toys, such as Kinder Joy eggs, in that the element of surprise is the reason why gamers are eagerly purchasing loot boxes. As such, Hopkins stated that her company has no qualms about the ethical concerns of loot boxes, and that players truly enjoy them in games.
Both pundits and the community at large have responded with considerable backlash against these claims made by Hopkins. Most respondents have been quick to point out that EA has never referred to loot boxes as ‘surprise mechanics’, meaning that Hopkins’s claim on the element of surprise is dubious at best.
Moreover, the sentiment from the gaming community at large has been that EA is simply trying to circumnavigate the issue of gambling disguised as game mechanics, which said loot boxes enable. Many contend that re-branding loot boxes under a different name is a desperate attempt by EA to isolate their nefarious microtransaction system from a recent crackdown on bans.
Both Belgium and the Netherlands have thus far deemed loot boxes to be illegal, with other countries such as Australia attempting to bring these kinds of in-game monetisation services under strict legal regulations.
The full stream of the hearing has been made available here.
Source: YongYea
Pieter hails all the way from the tip of southern Africa and suffers from serious PC technophilia. Therapists say it is incurable. Now he has to remind himself constantly that gaming doesn’t count as a religion even if DRM is the devil. Thankfully, writing reviews sometimes helps with the worst symptoms.
i saw that bit on critikal’s channel, someone commented saying that bill cosby called his drinks that (surprise mechanic)
i’m still laughing at that comment, lmao.
God bless my nibba critical
“Officer, it’s wasn’t rape, it was a surprise romantic time”
I feel so bad for laughing at this comment.
Wow. They saw that microtransactions became a dirty word and they just change it?
How stupid do they think their customers are? Especially when the whole SWBF2 incident is still relatively fresh in gamers’ memory.
EA can go to hell.
You’d think EA couldn’t sink any lower, but you’d be wrong.
i dissagree in the past one of them said “we could charge for bullets in battlefield”
EA just keeps drilling, there’s no bottom with them.
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LOLLL
EA would doubtlessly call it a surprise mechanical keyboard!
Haha, you again. LMAO, you always deliver man. I wanna be like you when i grow up.
And as customers we can say… Surprise! We are not buying your s h i t 😀
Oi, mate. You’d be surprised how many buy this s h i t.
Aren’t you the first to pre-order and defend such thing ? Gears 5 and MK11 ?
I defend my own choices when it comes to my own money. Why should you care? Cause you wanna be cool in a everybody hates something article lol?
>We are not buying your s h i t.
>I defend my own choices when it comes to my own money.
>as customers we can say.
Maybe don’t make it public ? if you did then this is what you are going to get, fatty. Jesus have some consistency in your words mate. one day you s*it all over microtransactions in games, one day you are defending them.
Aren’t you the first to pre-order and defend such thing ? Gears 5 and MK11 ?
same way getting raped in the a$$ is surprise buttsex. Or your doctor surprising you by telling you that you got cancer.
I have a surprise mechanics for EA
Its called a russian rulete…..
same way getting raped in the a*s is surprise but***x. Or your doctor surprising you by telling you that you got cancer.
seriously john that a*s censor thing is getting out of control.
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Still waiting for Steam to implement a random game picker.
I have like 2.500 games myself now, and it’s beyond me what to pick half the time. Then I saw this;
What will you play next
SURPRISE ME (Button)
on the Xbox app, and I was like, why the heck doesn’t Steam have this yet? I was also looking on the internet for some extension, to my surprise that didn’t exist either. I really hope GoG 2.0 introduces something like that or someone makes it because it’s open source.
2.500 games that’s a lot man just close your eyes and click on something lol for me i normally have games i put hundreds of hrs into so even though i have a lot of games i always play those
One of the reasons I avoid those, lol. Otherwise I’ll enver get through all those games.
IMO, EA isn’t lying, but they’re kind of bastards for playing with words.
If they Committee asked further about it they are going to hit a road where they have to actually lie or tell the truth. I don’t necessarily blame the Committee but it seems to be like they aren’t aware of how things work, nor do they prod enough on these statements.
It’s a *Surprise Mechanic* That has a RNG chance to contain *Said Item* By excluding the % they can also evade certain words.
Like if you have a slot machine, one reel would be one virtual stop it would be 1 in 64 now hitting the jackpot on all 3 reels would be what 64^3 = 262,144
So your chance would be 1 in 262,144 to hit Jackpot.
once you apply these numbers to loot boxes as well, you can clearly see that it’s exactly the same kind of thing and *it is* gambling, sure there is a *SURPRISE* element. because you ALWAYS get something. But here’s the twist, each item has a said chance 1 in XXXX to drop. (Could be simplified by %) So how they get to evade this and call it surprise mechanics is beyond me. Why do they even let them?
Gacha is very popular in Asia, it’s what started all this, it came from those areas, it’s basically Toy Gambling that made its way in video games, its first occurrence in a video game was with the Japanese version of MapleStory. Never did we seem to actually care about this.
I remember back in the 90s these things came over to Europe, I’m not exactly sure what opted them to disappear, but it had the same kind of thing going on. These things are aimed at kids, because they’re TOYS. Kids will throw in just as much money into them until they get the toy they want. The same applies to Video games that are marketed at Kids, the skins are basically Toys, while all toys might work similar they all have a different appearance and you KEEP paying until you get it.
This is quite simply predatorial, whatever someone tells me I can’t change my mind on it.
I’m okay if they want to keep these in the game for adults and rate all their games 18+ , but don’t start spinning some bull crap on it instead of calling what it really is.
Absolutely no love for EA, just off this and I would more than gladly avoid any kind of game in the future for this, at least be honest about it.