Paid content in videogames (DLC, loot boxes, passes, currencies, "surprise mechanics" and - new! - pay more or wait!)

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
I would pay actual money to score a screamer of a goal with Darth Vader.

There's no rule in football about using a lightsaber, is there?

Law 4:

The players must be inspected before the start of the match and substitutes before they enter the field of play. If a player is wearing or using unauthorised/dangerous equipment or jewellery the referee must order the player to:

remove the item

leave the field of play at the next stoppage if the player is unable or unwilling to comply

A player who refuses to comply or wears the item again must be cautioned.

http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-gov ... -equipment

Moggy wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:
I would pay actual money to score a screamer of a goal with Darth Vader.

There's no rule in football about using a lightsaber, is there?

Law 4:

The players must be inspected before the start of the match and substitutes before they enter the field of play. If a player is wearing or using unauthorised/dangerous equipment or jewellery the referee must order the player to:

remove the item

leave the field of play at the next stoppage if the player is unable or unwilling to comply

A player who refuses to comply or wears the item again must be cautioned.

http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-gov ... -equipment

Ah strawberry float.

Hime wrote:What practical changes will be made if loot boxes are classed as gambling? You have to be 18 and can set up limits to the amount you can put in your wallet?

I imagine all games with them get a big BBFC 18 on them and warnings about gambling content. There are probably all kinds of hoops to go through in terms of selling them in shops and hefty fines for anyone who sells them to kids, as well as restrictions on advertising etc:

https://www.casino.co.uk/guides/legislation/
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7428/

It remains to be seen whether stomaching FIFA with an 18 rating etc is more or less appealing to publishers than turning off the revenue tap.

Trelliz wrote:

Hime wrote:What practical changes will be made if loot boxes are classed as gambling? You have to be 18 and can set up limits to the amount you can put in your wallet?

I imagine all games with them get a big BBFC 18 on them and warnings about gambling content. There are probably all kinds of hoops to go through in terms of selling them in shops and hefty fines for anyone who sells them to kids, as well as restrictions on advertising etc:

https://www.casino.co.uk/guides/legislation/
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7428/

It remains to be seen whether stomaching FIFA with an 18 rating etc is more or less appealing to publishers than turning off the revenue tap.

Yeah that sounds like a positive move.

I think the sad thing with all this is that they could have had a sticker pack type system (which lots obviously enjoy) without completely ripping the arse out of people.

Hime wrote:

Trelliz wrote:

Hime wrote:What practical changes will be made if loot boxes are classed as gambling? You have to be 18 and can set up limits to the amount you can put in your wallet?

I imagine all games with them get a big BBFC 18 on them and warnings about gambling content. There are probably all kinds of hoops to go through in terms of selling them in shops and hefty fines for anyone who sells them to kids, as well as restrictions on advertising etc:

https://www.casino.co.uk/guides/legislation/
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7428/

It remains to be seen whether stomaching FIFA with an 18 rating etc is more or less appealing to publishers than turning off the revenue tap.

Yeah that sounds like a positive move.

I think the sad thing with all this is that they could have had a sticker pack type system (which lots obviously enjoy) without completely ripping the arse out of people.

Yep. The industry was given every opportunity to self regulate and not take the piss. They actively refused to do so and now government intervention is the only option.

Man imagine if Fifa ended up being Pegi 18 or something, or had a BBFC rating on there. EA would lose their minds.

Pretty sure at this point FIFA make more money from Ultimate Team microtransactions than they do form actually selling the game so they might just slap Pegi 18 on it and carry on given the choice.

Tomous wrote:Pretty sure at this point FIFA make more money from Ultimate Team microtransactions than they do form actually selling the game so they might just slap Pegi 18 on it and carry on given the choice.

Maybe, but I could see at least some parents take a second look at the latest version of Fifa having an 18 rating prominently displayed on the front and asking why, only to have to be told it's because it contains gambling mechanics and has a gambling addiction warning attached to it.

If people aren't buying the game then they aren't going to make the money from Ultimate Team.

I don’t imagine it’ll lose them many sales, sadly, but I’d simply love to see it put FIFA under. Thirty years of being a duff franchise.

Do we not just think that parents will buy it for Little Jonny anyway, like they have with every other 18-rated game on the market?

Corazon de Leon wrote:I don’t imagine it’ll lose them many sales, sadly, but I’d simply love to see it put FIFA under. Thirty years of being a duff franchise.

But it isn't though, FIFA is alright. As others have said there are plenty of options outside of FUT.

I think it would be a bit different if it was specifically a sports game with an '18' label on the cover. You would hope it would get the majority* of parents thinking about what would cause a sports game to get a certification like that.

I think even the threat of cutting off their cash-cow (kids) would be enough for EA to change tack. We've already seen it removed from UFC 4 (although it's not as big a seller) and that is a franchise who could get away with a certificate like that.

*Of course some numpties will just buy it anyway without thinking.

JT986M2 wrote:I think it would be a bit different if it was specifically a sports game with an '18' label on the cover. You would hope it would get the majority* of parents thinking about what would cause a sports game to get a certification like that.

I think even the threat of cutting off their cash-cow (kids) would be enough for EA to change tack. We've already seen it removed from UFC 4 (although it's not as big a seller) and that is a franchise who could get away with a certificate like that.

*Of course some numpties will just buy it anyway without thinking.

Are kids their cash-cow? I can't imagine them having access to amounts similar to the disposable income that adults hooked on it will have.

Hime wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:I don’t imagine it’ll lose them many sales, sadly, but I’d simply love to see it put FIFA under. Thirty years of being a duff franchise.

But it isn't though, FIFA is alright. As others have said there are plenty of options outside of FUT.

This will probably be a case of opinions simply differing, but it really does feel like EA have been resting on their gameplay laurels for the best part of a decade at this point and churning out essentially the same game(I could never get into FUT so can’t really offer an opinion on that). I went back to FIFA 17, FIFA 14 and FIFA 12 recently to grab some easy achievements and apart from improved graphics I couldn’t really tell the difference in gameplay between the three games and FIFA 20.

It’s simply not fun to play FIFA for me anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. I’d like to see someone else get a shot at the full license.

Tomous wrote:Are kids their cash-cow? I can't imagine them having access to amounts similar to the disposable income that adults hooked on it will have.

No, but if a non-gaming literate adult has put their card details in to buy a game, xbox live/PSN etc and has either left those details or not set up appropriate restrictions or removing them, then kids can just hit the button to buy EA fun bux over and over. One of the main criticisms is that this state of affairs is the default; that rather than having to go through lots of hoops to enable buying this stuff it seems to take more effort to disable it. Its all well and good launching these limp initiatives that appear to want to educate parents about it, but that's taking the position of "hey, we're doing this thing, here's how to stop it" which is just ass-backwards.

Tomous wrote:

JT986M2 wrote:I think it would be a bit different if it was specifically a sports game with an '18' label on the cover. You would hope it would get the majority* of parents thinking about what would cause a sports game to get a certification like that.

I think even the threat of cutting off their cash-cow (kids) would be enough for EA to change tack. We've already seen it removed from UFC 4 (although it's not as big a seller) and that is a franchise who could get away with a certificate like that.

*Of course some numpties will just buy it anyway without thinking.

Are kids their cash-cow? I can't imagine them having access to amounts similar to the disposable income that adults hooked on it will have.

Kids pulling the old “Mum can I have £3 for an ultimate team pack?” a few times a week will probably be netting them good cash, but You’ve got to think the bulk of their micro-transaction income will be coming from the 18-29 crowd.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Hime wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:I don’t imagine it’ll lose them many sales, sadly, but I’d simply love to see it put FIFA under. Thirty years of being a duff franchise.

But it isn't though, FIFA is alright. As others have said there are plenty of options outside of FUT.

This will probably be a case of opinions simply differing, but it really does feel like EA have been resting on their gameplay laurels for the best part of a decade at this point and churning out essentially the same game(I could never get into FUT so can’t really offer an opinion on that). I went back to FIFA 17, FIFA 14 and FIFA 12 recently to grab some easy achievements and apart from improved graphics I couldn’t really tell the difference in gameplay between the three games and FIFA 20.

It’s simply not fun to play FIFA for me anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. I’d like to see someone else get a shot at the full license.

I can't disagree with that but what you've written there is a bit different to "the game has been gooseberry fool for 30 years".

Hime wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Hime wrote:

Corazon de Leon wrote:I don’t imagine it’ll lose them many sales, sadly, but I’d simply love to see it put FIFA under. Thirty years of being a duff franchise.

But it isn't though, FIFA is alright. As others have said there are plenty of options outside of FUT.

This will probably be a case of opinions simply differing, but it really does feel like EA have been resting on their gameplay laurels for the best part of a decade at this point and churning out essentially the same game(I could never get into FUT so can’t really offer an opinion on that). I went back to FIFA 17, FIFA 14 and FIFA 12 recently to grab some easy achievements and apart from improved graphics I couldn’t really tell the difference in gameplay between the three games and FIFA 20.

It’s simply not fun to play FIFA for me anymore and hasn’t been for a long time. I’d like to see someone else get a shot at the full license.

I can't disagree with that but what you've written there is a bit different to "the game has been gooseberry fool for 30 years".

I said it was a duff franchise, not that the games are gooseberry fool. Thinking on it a bit further the games are all individually fine, probably a solid 6 or 7 out of 10 most years, but (again on further reflection) the “update” phenomena I’m talking about isn’t new, almost every annual update of FIFA has only added incremental updates beyond the odd generational leap(I say this as someone who still owns FIFA International Soccer through FIFA 17).

This is understandable, when you only have a year at best to improve the formula, but for the consumer who has essentially been paying £40 a year for an updated roster and a couple of AI tweaks I’d strongly argue that the business model being employed has led to the franchise being, for want of a better word, duff.

And again that’s without even getting into EA’s use of micro-transactions.

Obviously that’s not a criticism that’s unique to FIFA, it’s probably endemic to sports games - PES and Madden are similarly duff for the same reason. In fact Madden is even more egregious than FIFA IMO. I can’t speak for NHL, NBA etc. because I’ve only got limited experience of playing those games but I can’t see that they’re immune either. Hard to blame EA for it though, they must make so much money on their sports franchises and most people seem happy enough with them! I’m quite happy to be an outlier here.

Corazon de Leon wrote:

Tomous wrote:

JT986M2 wrote:I think it would be a bit different if it was specifically a sports game with an '18' label on the cover. You would hope it would get the majority* of parents thinking about what would cause a sports game to get a certification like that.

I think even the threat of cutting off their cash-cow (kids) would be enough for EA to change tack. We've already seen it removed from UFC 4 (although it's not as big a seller) and that is a franchise who could get away with a certificate like that.

*Of course some numpties will just buy it anyway without thinking.

Are kids their cash-cow? I can't imagine them having access to amounts similar to the disposable income that adults hooked on it will have.

Kids pulling the old “Mum can I have £3 for an ultimate team pack?” a few times a week will probably be netting them good cash, but You’ve got to think the bulk of their micro-transaction income will be coming from the 18-29 crowd.

Yep-I expect the spend for many in that segment is in the £100s

Corazon de Leon wrote: I can’t speak for NHL, NBA etc. because I’ve only got limited experience of playing those games but I can’t see that they’re immune either.

Here is a trailer for NBA 2K20 which features literal slot machines, it's pretty clear EA are far from the only culprits, and 2K may be worse: