EA defends lootboxes by calling them ethical surprise mechanics, and comparing them to Kinder Eggs

J-Machine · Jun 21, 2019

kinder eggs are made differently in usa to make them circumvent the law now.

Localhorst86 · Jun 21, 2019

Bimmel said:
You what? How can this be?

I remember shaking those eggs in public when I was little. Good times.

Maybe they are legal where you are from (Gambia), but in the US the Kinder eggs we know are banned because the toy is fully encased in chocolate. That's why Ferrero introduced the Kinder joy. Here, toy and chocolate are separate. BTW, have you recently opened a Kinder egg? The toys have become really shitty.

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J-Machine said:
kinder eggs are made differently in usa to make them circumvent the law now.

They're not "made differently", they are different products all together. Kinder Joy is available in markets alongside Kinder eggs where they are not illegal. The toys are different and they taste vastly different to each other. Kinder eggs are a hard, chocolate shell lined on the inside with milk cream. Kinder joy is a soft chocolate cream layered on top of milk cream.

Ritsuki · Jun 21, 2019

Remember when you were a kid and stole your parents credit cards to buy your local store stash of kinder to get your rare drop of the golden car? Because I don't. And pretty sure that the drop rates of kinder toys are a tad bit higher, but ok.

But more seriously, the thing is that loot boxes work like gambling. Unlike kinder (or trading card games), each time you buy one, the probability of getting the other items doesn't increase, and you can't resell the items you don't need most of the time.

osaka35 · Jun 21, 2019

Yeah, no. Kinder eggs all have equal value. The chocolate is #1, with the addition of a random thing of equal value to everything else, none of them particularly valuable.

Loot crated have variable value, and some have little to no inherent value (especially duplicates).

Most definitely not like kinder eggs.

Taleweaver · Jun 21, 2019

Chary said:
EA's Vice President of Legal Affairs, Kerry Hopkins, made a few comments in the defense of lootboxes in video games, saying, "We don't call them lootboxes. They are instead referred to as surprise mechanics."

Nice sugar coating. But ey...let's meet them half way. Rather than judging "downright make lootboxes illegal", I can live with a judgment that says "retire these specific surprise mechanics in order to make the overall game get along better with local laws protecting children."

Chary said:
In attempts to further explain EA's stance on preventing lootboxes from being considered gambling, especially towards minors, Hopkins then said "People enjoy surprises, it's been a part of toys for years, like in Kinder Eggs or Hatchimals. [...] Lootboxes are actually quite ethical and quite fun, quite enjoyable to people".

Wow. Just...wow. This gives a pretty perverse meaning to their "challenge everything" slogan.

If EA would be the one distributing these chocolate eggs, you wouldn't find a surprise in it but a note saying "to purchase a random surprise, please pay us a small amount of extra cash".

SG854 · Jun 21, 2019

Veho said:
"No your honor, I didn't beat my wife. It was just a string of surprise high fives."

It’s not much of a surprise when you have to enter your credit card information and click purchase. It’s self inflicted beatings.

“No your honor I didn’t pay anyone out of my own choice to beat me senselessly because I find it kinky.”

Bladexdsl · Jun 21, 2019

bwa hahahahah how fucking desperate and pathetic is EA! :rofl2:

SG854 · Jun 21, 2019

the_randomizer said:
Maybe companies should learn to include their games all the fucking content instead of milking it out with bullshit lootboxes.

I have never bought a single loot box in my life. I think they are stupid. They ain’t gunna milk anything out of me.

kuwanger · Jun 21, 2019

"People enjoy surprises, it's been a part of food for years, like opium in your cough syrup or lottery tickets in your Crack Jack. [...] Lootboxes are actually quite ethical and quite fun, quite enjoyable to people".

And as others have said, the comparison to Kinder Joy which had to specifically be made to not be a choke hazard because of the risk to people... Because people don't like the "surprise" of choking on a plastic egg.

smilodon · Jun 21, 2019

This looks like a fake news to discredit EA. One of the worst PR move ever if it is true.

YamiZee · Jun 21, 2019

A kinder egg is eaten because it tastes good, and the toys are a small inconsequential bonus. Maybe if the boxes always gave you 20k currency, and gave you one random item as a bonus, it would be fine. But when the point is that bonus, and the bonus is so varying in quality, it becomes gambling.

Foxi4 · Jun 21, 2019

They're not wrong.

AbyssalMonkey · Jun 21, 2019

osaka35 said:
Yeah, no. Kinder eggs all have equal value. The chocolate is #1, with the addition of a random thing of equal value to everything else, none of them particularly valuable.

Loot crated have variable value, and some have little to no inherent value (especially duplicates).

Most definitely not like kinder eggs.

YamiZee said:
A kinder egg is eaten because it tastes good, and the toys are a small inconsequential bonus. Maybe if the boxes always gave you 20k currency, and gave you one random item as a bonus, it would be fine. But when the point is that bonus, and the bonus is so varying in quality, it becomes gambling.

If people want to try and make justifications about lootboxes, this is the most damning point of all. Where all these industries started was giving a bonus pack on the back of a known purchase. When baseball cards were introduced into bubblegum, they almost certainly had an equal chance of holding any given card. There were 52 cards, mimicking a deck of cards. This slowly got twisted into trading cards with booster packs and randomness and then lootboxes. In any case, with Kinder, toy meals at a restaurant, and bubblegum cards, you aren't selling the trinket inside, you are selling the product first and foremost. Now, whether these should be re-examined should also be up for debate, but there is still a drastic contrast between them and lootboxes selling randomness as a primary good.

I for one, think this is all come due. EA is going to be taking the rest of the industries down with them. They've woken people up, and people are tired of it. Now the people are telling their governments to deal with it. Democracy truly in action.

gamesquest1 · Jun 21, 2019

lol they are basically trying to throw other people under the bus to protect themselves, and in all fairness they aren't too far wrong, my daughter uses the same addictive "buy more to find the thing you actually want" mentality that loot boxes take advantage of with LOL dolls, i would say i was subjected to the same thing with pokemon cards too.....one more pack and i will get a charizard, one more pack and i get a charizard

i think this case does touch on a more fundamental issue with not knowing what your buying, especially with products aimed at children, things like L.O.L dolls where you are supposed to collect all these dolls, and off certain dolls are "ultra rare" meaning kids end up buying multiple of the same item in the hopes of finding the thing they want, while i have fond memories of opening packs of pokemon cards and see the appeal of them i can also see how i was compelled to buy lots of junk in the search for good cards, no different than loot boxes

as a parent i can now see how annoying it must have been for my father knowing he would be nagged and nagged for more cards for me to get my dopamine fix for getting a shiny, and imho even kids toys have gone overboard with this "surprise mechanic" in shops at this point there are more toys that are "lucky dips" than those that you can just say "ahhh my daughter wants the sea shell character i will buy that one for her"

i would say these things have their place, but i would also prefer it if they were forced to offer a one off purchase of specific items without the gamble mechanic, even if it was £15 for the charizrd card, it would be better than paying £70 for a ton of packs of pokemon cards and still never receiving one, at least with physical items the secondary market takes care of that and i can if i want to just buy the item from someone for a certain price

Dinomite · Jun 21, 2019

They can't even come up with a passable excuse anymore. Kinder Eggs? Really? Pathetic statement from a pathetic company. Anyone who purchases lootboxes from EA is simply a fool.

xxNathanxx · Jun 21, 2019

The phrasing "Belgium and the Netherlands having outlawed lootboxes" suggests that new laws were created to ban lootboxes, but in fact the relevant authorities were simply asked whether lootboxes (paid for with real money) could be considered to fall under the already existing laws of gambling, which is illegal to offer to anyone under 18. Technically they just confirmed that yes, lootboxes are indeed gambling under a different name.

Nintendo, EA, etc could also simply abide by the law by changing the ratings for all of their games with lootboxes to 18+, but then they would essentially be forced to explain to parents why on earth the cutesy Animal Crossing or the latest FIFA is only available for adults, and admit that they try to saddle impressionable kids with a gambling addiction in order to get as much money as possible from them. Much easier to pretend that those games don't exist.

CTR640 · Jun 21, 2019

EA calls them "ethical surprise mechanics" I call them digital cancer. EA HAD to pull shit like to make the government hop in. Seriously, WTF is wrong with you, EA, really, WTF? This is the Greed to the next-level, they simply knows no limit when it comes to greed. EA = Electronic Assholes.

yoyoyo69 · Jun 21, 2019

raxadian said:
EA, the guys who bought games rights only to fill them with pay to win and are only good at sports games. And whose sports games are so similar you better skip a few years between each ones so at least the newest one looks better.

Also, how many Kinder Eggs can you buy with what one of EA loot boxes cost?

Ans received a PHYSICAL item in return (several as mention)

EA and others want to charge many times the cost for pixels. They know fine well the implications thee loot boxes have on grown adults. They also know VERY well how damaging they are to children, they should really face criminal charges for negligence, intentionally targeting the vulnerable (I'm aware others may see this differently, but addiction is real) in the name on continued profit.

It's not like they don't already make unrealistic profits, for trash games. Their progress seems to have been toward, less work and quality and more cheap filler to bump costs.

Hielkenator2 · Jun 21, 2019

Chary said:
View attachment 170692

In the latest scrutiny over the biggest modern gaming controversy, lootboxes, the United Kingdom's Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee has called both Epic Games and Electronic Arts into Parliament in order to discern whether lootboxes should be outlawed. With both companies publishing some of the largest video game franchises that include lootboxes as a major mechanic--Fortnite and FIFA, respectively--the Committee has begun an investigation into whether lootboxes are harming consumers. During the meeting, which was held on June 19th, Scotland's National Party MP claimed that studies and evidence showed that lootboxes have a close link to gambling. In response, EA's Vice President of Legal Affairs, Kerry Hopkins, made a few comments in the defense of lootboxes in video games, saying, "We don't call them lootboxes. They are instead referred to as surprise mechanics."

Hopkins continued her statement by stating the following, "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."

In attempts to further explain EA's stance on preventing lootboxes from being considered gambling, especially towards minors, Hopkins then said "People enjoy surprises, it's been a part of toys for years, like in Kinder Eggs or Hatchimals. [...] Lootboxes are actually quite ethical and quite fun, quite enjoyable to people".

Regardless of EA's own stance on the subject, it appears that smaller European countries do not agree, with Belgium and the Netherlands having outlawed lootboxes, resulting in the removal of those elements from their Belgian and Dutch releases, such as Blizzard and 2K removing the option to pay real money for lootboxes in Overwatch and NBA 2K18. Even in the United States, the Senate has put up a bill that, should it manage to be passed, would also ban pay-to-win microtransactions.

Source

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Just ban any game involving lootboxes for yourself and your kids. It is what I do. Think of the future.
Games by themselves are addictive, kinder eggs are by definition NOT.

Panzerfaust · Jun 21, 2019

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