Difficulty Adjusting Influences Player Spending in EA Sports Games
A lawsuit was recently filed in Canada against Electronic Arts regarding the lootboxes in EA Sports games primarily. This lawsuit is alleging that EA utilizes Difficulty Adjusting to highly influence matches in order to encourage FIFA, Madden, NHL, etc. fans to purchase lootboxes in order to potentially unlock a good player that will help them win the next match. FIFA 21 is available right now for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
“EA’s undisclosed use of Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms deprives gamers who purchase Player Packs of the benefit of their bargains because EA’s Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms, rather than only the stated ranking of the gamers’ Ultimate Team players and the gamers’ relative skill, dictates, or at least highly influences the outcome of the match,” alleges the lawsuit filed against EA in Canada. “This is a self-perpetuating cycle that benefits EA to the detriment of EA Sports gamers, since Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms make gamers believe their teams are less skilled than they actually are, leading them to purchase additional Player Packs in hopes of receiving better players and being more competitive.”
“We would never use it to advantage or disadvantage any group of players against another in any of our games,” claimed an EA spokesperson. “The technology was designed to explore how we might help players that are having difficulty in a certain area of a game have an opportunity to advance… we believe the claims are baseless and misrepresent our games, and we will defend.” While Electronic Arts is being careful with how they address these allegations, it’ll be interesting to see how the lawsuit plays out.
Do you think that Electronic Arts uses predatory mechanics to increase lootbox sales? Let us know in the comments below!