Teams urge U.S. to probe ‘loot box’ on Electronic Arts online game

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - Consumer advocates on Thursday urged U.S. regulators to investigate online game maker Electronic Arts Inc (EA.O) for what they are saying was the misleading use of a digital "loot box" that "aggressively" urges players to spend more money whereas playing a well-liked soccer sport.

The teams Fairplay, Center for Digital Democracy and 13 different organizations urged the Federal Commerce Fee to probe the EA game "FIFA: Final Workforce".

Within the recreation, players construct a soccer group utilizing avatars of actual gamers and compete in opposition to different teams. In a letter to the FTC, the groups mentioned the game normally prices $50 to $100 but that the company pushed push gamers to spend more.

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"It entices gamers to buy packs looking for special players," mentioned the letter despatched by these groups together with the Client Federation of America and Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Well being and others.

The packs, or loot bins, are packages of digital content material typically purchased with real cash that give the purchaser a potential advantage in a recreation. They can be bought with digital foreign money, which may obscure how much is spent, they mentioned.

"The chances of opening a coveted card, resembling a Player of the Yr, are miniscule except a gamer spends 1000's of dollars on points or performs for thousands of hours to earn cash," the teams stated in the letter.

Electronic Arts mentioned in an announcement on Thursday that of the game's hundreds of thousands of players, 78% have not made an in-game purchase.

"Spending is at all times optionally available," an organization spokesperson stated in an email statement. "We encourage the usage of parental controls, including spend controls, which might be out there for every main gaming platform, including EA's personal platforms."

The spokesperson also stated the corporate created a dashboard so players would monitor how a lot time they played, what number of packs they opened and what purchases had been made.

The FTC, which matches after firms engaged in deceptive behavior, held a workshop on loot packing containers in 2019. In a "employees perspective" which adopted, the agency noted that video game microtransactions have change into a multibillion-dollar market.

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Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis

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