Fifa Gambling
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EA Hits Almost $1 Billion in Microtransactions, Gets Slapped with Lawsuit Over FIFA 20 Team Packs. Posted on: February 3, 2020, 05:46h. Last updated on: February 25, 2020, 12:45h. FIFA eChampions League – The FIFA eChampions League is three-stage tournament. The first stage is an online qualifier, that is a replica of the 4 rounds of the real-life Champions League. This FIFA tournament is only open to PS4 players and has a prize pool of $280,000.
Games industry veteran Peter Moore does not view FIFA Ultimate Team card packs as gambling.
Gambling Commission programme director Brad Enright admitted that games publisher EA, which sells the football team management game Fifa, faced 'a constant battle' against unauthorised secondary. Bet on FIFA matches. Similar to other esports betting options, FIFA games offer bets such as the match winner, tournament winner and even group winner. As an added option, and a little more excitement, players can also place live bets such as which side they think will score the first goal, though this will require in-depth knowledge of the individual players and their skills.
Moore served as president of EA Sports when the mode was introduced in 2008's FIFA 09. He later rose to other positions at Electronic Arts, before leaving to become CEO of Liverpool FC.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz about his recent appointment as a director of mobile sports games publisher Nifty Games, we asked for his thoughts on the ongoing criticism against loot boxes and randomised monetisation mechanics, a debate in which Ultimate Team has been used as a prominent example.
Moore pointed to the history of sports enthusiasm, saying the concept of Ultimate Team 'goes all the way back to collecting cigarette cards in the 1920s and '30s' as well as the UK's Lucky Bags -- packs of randomised sweets, toys and activities -- of his own childhood. The experience of opening something and not knowing what will be inside is appealing to many, hence the popularity of Ultimate Team unboxing videos.
'People loved it,' he says. 'I think that sense of uncertainty and 'What are you going to get?' and then bang, Ronaldo or Messi would roll out and that's a wonderful thing.'
Loot boxes have been widely criticised in recent years -- to the point where governments are debating whether it constitutes gambling. Some nations, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, have already classed it as such and demand that this feature be removed from a game before it can go on sale.
The backlash against loot boxes ramped up in 2017 -- in particular around EA's Star Wars Battlefront 2 -- and the publisher has defended its use of the mechanic. It has likened Ultimate Team to collectible football stickers and cards, emphasising that, regardless of whether players get the content they hoped for, they do still receive something for their purchase -- an appraisal Moore shares.
'Surprise and delight vs gambling... on a continuum, they're a long way from each other'
'You're always getting something,' he says. 'It's not like you opened it and there's no players in there.
'This is a personal view, but the concept of surprise and delight vs gambling... on a continuum, they're a long way from each other. You buy or grind your way up to getting a gold pack, you open it up, and you're either happy or you think it's a crappy pack. I don't see that as gambling, per se -- but again, this is my personal view as an outsider right now.
'I get the scrutiny, I understand outside of sports that loot boxes -- again, another EA title in particular -- get a lot of scrutiny and criticism. EA pulled back on that. One thing they're always good at is getting feedback and realising 'You know what, probably shouldn't have done that' or 'That was the wrong decision, it wasn't gamer-first,' and then pulling back and making a different decision.'
Moore suggests the most telling factor should be whether players like it, and EA's balance sheet certainly seems to suggest this. Ultimate Team modes accounted for $1.49 billion, or 27%, of EA's net revenue for the previous financial year, and made over $1 billion for at least two years prior.
Fifa Gaming Careers
'The numbers speak for themselves,' says Moore. 'And if you play it, you love it. One of the only complaints we got about Ultimate Team while I was at EA was if the servers went down and they couldn't play or open their packs.
'It has really developed a service element to the game itself, and pretty much reinvented with FIFA was all about in a period where sports games were relatively stagnant.'
Last year, EA launched FIFA Playtime as a way to help Ultimate Team fans keep track of and limit their spending. However, our North American editor Brendan Sinclair observed that doing so presents new financial challenges.
Our full interview with Moore about his return to games will be published next week.
Soccer might be the world’s most popular sport, and it has also inspired one of the world’s most popular video games. Electronic Arts’ franchise, FIFA has captured the attention of tens of millions of gamers across the globe by giving them control over a virtual version of their favorite club. But it has also turned the heads of national governments — Belgium and the Netherlands — that claim one of FIFA’s game modes are akin to gambling.
FIFA Ultimate Team — or FUT for short — allows gamers to build their very own soccer club with in-game cards. Users have two options: “Grind” for countless hours to amass enough in-game currency to purchase better players or spend real cash on in-game coins to purchase virtual “packs” that give you a chance to get some of the game’s best athletes. But you don’t know which players you’ll get until you buy a pack with coins — coins that can be sold for real money on the black market.
Much the same as the reaction that was caused by the Battlefront 2 loot crate controversy, FUT has also prompted certain European government agencies to consider regulating this game mode as if it was gambling. But EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson sees things differently.
“We don’t believe that FIFA Ultimate Team – all loot boxes are gambling,” he said during an investor call on Tuesday. “Firstly, players always receive a specified number of items in each FUT pack. And secondly, we don’t provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items in virtual currency for real-world money. We forbid the transfer of items of in-the-game currency outside, we also actively seek to eliminate that where it’s going on in an illegal environment.”
However, unauthorized exchanges for gamers to sell FUT coins came into existence shortly after the feature came into popularity.
Fifa Gambling
These comments come in light of the Dutch Gaming Authority and the Belgian Gaming Commission, may be in violation of countries’ gambling laws. Koen Geens, the Belgian minister of justice, issued an April 25 statement that EA must remove FUT packs or face a fine of up to 800,000 euros.
Fifa Gambling Belgium
“The games with paid loot boxes, as currently offered in our country, are therefore in violation of the gaming legislation and can be dealt with under criminal law,” reads a translated version of the statement. “The loot boxes must therefore also be removed.”
EA’s biggest defense against these claims is that users can’t cash out in-game items for money. They have also implemented certain restrictions to FIFA that keep users from using in-game loopholes to purchase cards for real money. Those illicit FUT sites still exist and allow those willing to use their service to turn virtual coins into actual money.
Fifa Gambling Lawsuit
While there are still ongoing issues with black market FUT transfers, this microtransaction-fueled game mode probably isn’t going anywhere simply because of how much money it nets EA. During the same investor call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen reported that the company made $1.58 billion in fourth-quarter revenue. The Ultimate Team feature across all of its sports games was cited as a major driving factor.
Seeing as this is such a crucial revenue driver it is unlikely that EA will outrightly remove its pack feature. The Entertainment Software Rating Board announced in February that it will begin specifically labeling games with these types of loot boxes. But anything other than drastic legal action won’t make EA shutter Ultimate Team.
As the mircostransaction economy continues to skyrocket in the gaming industry, the line between video games and gambling has blurred.