EA Gambling Crates, 1 game went too far, others to follow

[TrixxieTriss]

I only have one thing more to say. Watch this -

 

[GalacticKegger]

I only have one thing more to say. Watch this -

 

That was amazing. Here we go ...

[Tsillah]

I like the gear they have. I was here at launch and the outfits were atrocious so if going back to that gear is what you want, no thank you.

Nobody's talking about the gear but how it's delivered into the game.

[Andryah]

I only have one thing more to say. Watch this -

 

 

Classic two dimensional observation of something that is in fact much more then two dimensions.

 

Nothing in this video is new news at all unless you have just been asleep for the last 5 or 6 years. Of course...since it is an amateur youtube guerilla reporting video against a corporation.... it is instantly the best thing since sliced bread on the forum at the moment for those that for whatever reason do not like loot boxes being anything other then rich and fruitful candy that drops left and right in game.

 

You, and your fellow pitch fork wielders would be well served to actually go back and review the investor call notes from EA for the last 5 years. In context... it all actually makes good business sense and good commercial sense in a market that is heavily moved away from subscriber only gaming (and sorry.. but EA is not the biggest offender here among the various companies that develop and publish online games).

 

Why? Because they have been very open and transparent about their efforts in monetizing games that are otherwise either free to play or buy to play. They have discussed at length with shareholders about monetized transactions (ie: micro-tranactions) be core to their revenue plans since around 2010 (though it took several years before they settled into a successful long term plan for how they go about it across their entire book of products.

 

Note: before you start slinging "fanboy" ad hominems at me.... I personally do not like the massive industry move to sustainable business based on micro-transactions, but I also understand why they came about and why they are here to stay. It is very popular with a lot of gamers (whether some of you like it or not), and has proven to be very successful for multiple studios in multiple game genres and in fact is probably saving a lot of games from pre-mature death. I agree that EA appears to pushed things too far with the way they approached things with BF2.... but I also understand that companies both need to, and can, adjust and test their products and services commercially with players (and in the face of their competition doing the same) in a variety of ways. Clearly... they learned something with BF2 ----> they went too far (at least for now), and will simply dial it back a bit and largely end the rage and faux revolts by players.

 

A lot of you appear to be unable or unwilling to look at the larger context of what is taking place in the gaming genres in recent years. Yes... studios are testing limits... but we have to keep in mind... a notable segment of the gamer marketplace actually prefer monetization models that do not require a subscription, and a majority of them actually do not even want a buy-to-play model.. they want everything for free. But as players.. we are never going to get the kind of free and entitled content drops for free in todays variety of business models. The more free it is to gain access and get started in these new business models.. they more they monetize the micro-transaction side of gaming and gamers. Clearly if micro-transactions were not a profitable approach with customers for companies... they would not be doing them, they would be trying other business models instead.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Andryah

[Andryah]

Nobody's talking about the gear but how it's delivered into the game.

 

As long as CM itemization continues to be freely tradable between players.... this is a conflated issue on your (and others) part. It's fine to say you don't like the model.. but you not liking the model =/= model is broadly speaking bad for the game and it's players. Now.. if the studio had made cartel pack contents bind on pickup... the model would fail terribly and the game would shut down.

 

Many players have in fact NEVER EVER purchased cartel coins to buy CM items, much less spend any they gain for free on cartel packs. It simply is not required in this game the way the bind and trade mechanics surrounding CM items has been deployed and maintained. And yet... many of these same players have every piece of CM item content they want, have unlocked it across their characters with CCs, and continue to enjoy the game will avoiding direct interaction with the Cartel Market and it's direct and chance based item sales.

[supertimtaf]

I was here at launch and the only gear they had was horrible. They don't have a crafting system like we had in SWG simply because this game wasn't designed like SWG. I love my crafters in SWG and I could use the clothing we had and we had some nice one (and some I refused to make) and I could combine outfits and create costumes, like wonder woman, star wars and etc. The only problem is crafting requires more than what we can do here and it is not something your companions can do. You have to survey for the right stuff (mineral, water, gas, etc) and then you have to place a harvester down to harvest the resources. In SWG we could do that, here you can't. The planets are not set up that way. Crafting also require you to have a crafter for the bonus in harvesting and in the factories, which again is something this game was not made for at the beginning.

 

As far as creating outfits from in game content that becomes a problem due to the fact people play the game differently. You have those that will not touch pvp (with a 50 foot pole), some that never do ops, flashpoints, etc so how do they correctly put nice outfits in the game that everyone can achieve even if they don't do certain activities. That would be a problem. I am a firm believer that if they put outfits in the game then it has to be able to be achieve by everyone even if they don't do specific content.

 

I completely agree with you on all point here, but this doesn't justify that they gate the cool looking gear behind a cartel coins+rng wall

Cool gear should be available with crafting too, this would make a lot of things more interesting imo

[Tsillah]

As long as CM itemization continues to be freely tradable between players.... this is a conflated issue on your (and others) part.

I disagree with that statement. The fact that it's tradeable between players actually makes it more akin to gambling because it also enables people to make real life money with it.

It's fine to say you don't like the model.. but you not liking the model =/= model is broadly speaking bad for the game and it's players.

That is a conflated point on your point. It's not me disliking the model but the reasons why I dislike them which makes me feel this is a bad thing overall. Do not confuse the two.

Now.. if the studio had made cartel pack contents bind on pickup... the model would fail terribly and the game would shut down.

This is the Overwatch system. Overwatch totally failed right?

[Seireeni]

I disagree with that statement. The fact that it's tradeable between players actually makes it more akin to gambling because it also enables people to make real life money with it.

 

Credits are not real life money. Also, I don't see how it's more gambling if you can take what you get from that gambling pack, sell it to someone else and buy what you originally wanted.

[Tsillah]

I think there is little wrong with the max level tokens. This is just MY opinion mind you, I only speak for myself.

 

IMO folks that use the tokens and are generally unaware of how to play the class would likely have that problem even if they leveled up the character from level 1. I also think there were plenty of players with this problem prior to tokens, and I do not believe the numbers have grown in a substantial way.

 

Experienced players that use a token would obviously know how to play the class.

 

Many of the mainstream MMOs on the market offer this as a feature, and it really doesn't seem to cause too many problems overall, other than folks railing against it because it breaks some kind of personal code for them.

I agree with you and I don't

 

Yes, a lot of players do not know how to play their class in any shape or form.

But no, this is not related to the tokens in my view. Why? Because a lot of these people who don't know their class actually leveled their toons from 1-70 and still don't have a clue.

 

So to me it's the players that are the problem and not the short cut.

[Tsillah]

Credits are not real life money. Also, I don't see how it's more gambling if you can take what you get from that gambling pack, sell it to someone else and buy what you originally wanted.

You do know that there are credit sellers that sell cartel packs and actual items and auction sites where people can sell their items directly for cash to other players?

 

This would not be possible if you couldn't trade items in game.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Tsillah

[GalacticKegger]

No, he means EA buying up development studios and then running them right into the ground. They are working on another one now. This video

discusses the pay-to-win randon crates/packs that EA has shoved into almost every game they run, who started it, how much they make off of it and how many games EA has destroyed over the last few years.

Yep ... it's become a cash-grab epidemic similar to the credit and housing bubble that exploded in the mid-2000s once the world found out it was based on laundered speculation. Nobody's untouchable.

 

Great find btw.

Edited November 25, 2017 by GalacticKegger

[Seireeni]

You do know that there are credit sellers that sell cartel packs and actual items and auction sites where people can sell their items directly for cash to other players?

 

This would not be possible if you couldn't trade items in game.

 

Which is against the terms of service, no? If they make the packs more dangerous, maybe we should be making laws to shut them down.

[Sareeph]

You do know that there are credit sellers that sell cartel packs and actual items and auction sites where people can sell their items directly for cash to other players?

 

This would not be possible if you couldn't trade items in game.

 

The fact that you can trade or sell items from the packs doesn't make it gambling. The fact that you are taking a risk at getting a possible result is what makes it gambling.

[Tsillah]

Which is against the terms of service, no? If they make the packs more dangerous, maybe we should be making laws to shut them down.

Against the ToS yes but have you never wondered why gaming companies cannot shut down those sites? And just because it's against the ToS doesn't change my point at all.

The fact that you can trade or sell items from the packs doesn't make it gambling. The fact that you are taking a risk at getting a possible result is what makes it gambling.

When it comes to gambling different countries have different rules. In my country one of the stipulations for it being gambling is whether or not you can make real money with it. From that point of view being able to monetize items is an element to consider. I agree with you though that the risk taking factor is key as well.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Tsillah

[Seireeni]

Against the ToS yes but have you never wondered why gaming companies cannot shut down those sites? And just because it's against the ToS doesn't change my point at all.

 

No, but making people who are not breaking ToS suffer because some other people are breaking ToS seems a little unfair to me.

[Tsillah]

No, but making people who are not breaking ToS suffer because some other people are breaking ToS seems a little unfair to me.

Suffer? You'd have to explain how that makes other people suffer.

[Seireeni]

Suffer? You'd have to explain how that makes other people suffer.

 

You just said that the existence of those sites is one of the reasons cosmetic RNG packs are worse form of gambling than if those sites did not exist. So it's hurting people who have gambling addiction, or are in danger of having one. Also, people want to shut down RNG cosmetic packs because they are hurting people who have a problem with gambling, which is hurting people who wish to keep RNG packs.

[Eshvara]

....!?

[Tsillah]

You just said that the existence of those sites is one of the reasons cosmetic RNG packs are worse form of gambling than if those sites did not exist. So it's hurting people who have gambling addiction, or are in danger of having one. Also, people want to shut down RNG cosmetic packs because they are hurting people who have a problem with gambling, which is hurting people who wish to keep RNG packs.

It's a stipulation that might be part of the reason why it would be considered gambling in some countries like mine.

 

It's not the only stipulation however and therefore not the entire issue. Even if you couldn't trade with other players, the RNG element (which is considered addictive) for which you have to pay a lot of money to get what you want/need out of it is already bad enough.

 

So the fact that people break the ToS isn't the defining point in what makes this harmful.

 

The problem I see more is that because they have been introducing so much via the cartel packs, that it made them lazy and stopped making good content because they could make their money by just selling skins and reskins with RNG boxes which makes people spend more.

 

Of course they know that not everyone will spend a lot of cash so making items tradeable is better for them because they don't care if 10 people buy 1 crate or 1 person buys 10 crates.

 

However the sad part is that you have to wonder what this sub you pay for monthly actually pays for. We've seen every expansion that has come out get smaller and smaller and the goodies from the cartel packs get more and more.

 

That, if anything, is what this game is suffering from.

 

I used to think that I was supporting this game when I used to buy cartel packs. I learned better. It was just lining EA's pockets and they weren't going to invest back into the game as long as we silently bought cartel packs. But I stopped a while ago and others did too and I think 5.0 really nailed it to them when more people stopped spending and left the game that got them into gear and try to make group content again and do more direct sales as we see now.

 

The message is this: companies do things for their customers when they stop spending, not when they spend. So oddly you need to stop giving them money to make things better. They don't use their profits to invest into the game but to create bigger profit margins. Once you see through that illusion, you see that the only really harmful thing to games and their quality is putting so much money into crates or boxes. It allows them to sit back and be lazy.

 

You have to make them work for their money or they don't work. We've seen that for too long. And by the way I don't mean the actual developers that are underpaid and overworked. It's the management levels I look at for this bull.

 

But yeh we got taken for a ride for a long time. We made up our own excuses like supporting the game or that the game couldn't exist without this to make us feel ok about spending ridiculous amounts of money on this. Now if you have the money and don't care that's fine, but don't think for one minute rng loot boxes are needed to make a game successful or stay alive. That's pure greed talking there.

[DanNV]

A lot of you appear to be unable or unwilling to look at the larger context of what is taking place in the gaming genres in recent years. Yes... studios are testing limits... but we have to keep in mind... a notable segment of the gamer marketplace actually prefer monetization models that do not require a subscription, and a majority of them actually do not even want a buy-to-play model.. they want everything for free. But as players.. we are never going to get the kind of free and entitled content drops for free in todays variety of business models. The more free it is to gain access and get started in these new business models.. they more they monetize the micro-transaction side of gaming and gamers. Clearly if micro-transactions were not a profitable approach with customers for companies... they would not be doing them, they would be trying other business models instead.

 

Again you make broad attacks against those you disagree with. We are perfectly capable of looking at the market and how the games are running. Yes, this model works for the companies. However, the random packs that you use real money to buy are gambling and should be outlawed. They encourage gambling addiction in children (and adults who are prone to it.) I have no problem with micro transactions for specific items that are cosmetic in nature. I have real issues with the BF II spend real money to win model and the random, gambling boxes you pay real money to get. And yes, I realize they are purchased with currency specific to the game, but you get that currency by paying real money and that currency isn't good for anything else. That makes it a smoke screen that is trying to hide the fact you gamble with real money.

 

The other part of that video that you ignored, is the number of games and studios EA has purchased and destroyed. Did you catch that with inflation adjusted dollars, EA now spends over $300,000,000.00 less on game development than it did a few years ago? That means less game to play, less content, more new games that aren't even complete at launch. Did you catch that this trend is due to them making more money off of idiots making micro transactions (that aren't very micro)? The examples from the end of their last fiscal year was FIFA making $800,000,000.00 mostly off of the random packs in the game which is a pay-to-win random pack deal. Are you telling me that's good for games in general and the players? Make no mistake, if it isn't good for the players, then the players should fight back, and finally are. Good. It's about blasted time.

[CombatLord]

Those mainstream MMOs that offer this as a feature also have continuous cycles of new and fresh end game content for the players to engage after they've used the token ... making them viable for both veterans and newbs alike. That is just not the case here.

 

As far as breaking some kind of personal code, uh ... I beg to differ. It's a generational code. The same baby boomer generation that produced the greatest ever (a fighter who became an expatriate because of the War) ... that burned bras in public as a show of support for women's rights ... who sacrificed their lives for racial equality ... who invented the very video gaming industry we have today ... have all grown up and are now looking at what has become of their creations in disgust.

 

The baby boomers are the ones who stood in line overnight at their local theaters back in 1977 when 'A New Hope' first opened. They comprised the lion's share of the nearly 3 million who ponied up big time for the original SWTOR because (bugs and a few missing features notwithstanding) it was the Star Wars MMO they were promised.

 

They are the ones who grew up paying for games and their expansions because they learned what "getting what you pay for" means. They are the ones who appreciate playing a game on its merits because that's how real gamers roll. They are the ones who have grown immune to special promotions, sales pitches and cash grabs. Baby boomers are smart enough to make the correlation between "somewhat RNG ↔ RNG" and "somewhat pregnant ↔ pregnant." They get it. As a result they are also the ones EA is chasing away in favor of targeting a naive generation of players (not gamers, players - big difference) who are suckers for those special promotions, sales pitches and cash grabs because ... for whatever reason ... they aren't getting it.

 

And now EA (and likely other game developers too) are being called out for their misconduct. Who knows ... maybe the newer generations will learn something from being in the middle of a revolution. We did.

 

 

Who are you to dictate and decide who is a "real gamer and who is not"? You don't like the cartel market then don't buy, I for one do like some the stuff on there and I like to buy. You have no right to say I am I am false for that, just as I have no right to say you are wrong for not buying.

[DanNV]

Who are you to dictate and decide who is a "real gamer and who is not"? You don't like the cartel market then don't buy, I for one do like some the stuff on there and I like to buy. You have no right to say I am I am false for that, just as I have no right to say you are wrong for not buying.

 

I don't know about the person you quoted, but I have no problem with the CM. I have an issue with the gambling packs you spend real money on. Direct sale items are fine, as long as they are cosmetic and not Pay-to-win.

[Seireeni]

It's a stipulation that might be part of the reason why it would be considered gambling in some countries like mine.

 

It's not the only stipulation however and therefore not the entire issue. Even if you couldn't trade with other players, the RNG element (which is considered addictive) for which you have to pay a lot of money to get what you want/need out of it is already bad enough.

 

So the fact that people break the ToS isn't the defining point in what makes this harmful.

 

The problem I see more is that because they have been introducing so much via the cartel packs, that it made them lazy and stopped making good content because they could make their money by just selling skins and reskins with RNG boxes which makes people spend more.

 

Of course they know that not everyone will spend a lot of cash so making items tradeable is better for them because they don't care if 10 people buy 1 crate or 1 person buys 10 crates.

 

However the sad part is that you have to wonder what this sub you pay for monthly actually pays for. We've seen every expansion that has come out get smaller and smaller and the goodies from the cartel packs get more and more.

 

That, if anything, is what this game is suffering from.

 

I used to think that I was supporting this game when I used to buy cartel packs. I learned better. It was just lining EA's pockets and they weren't going to invest back into the game as long as we silently bought cartel packs. But I stopped a while ago and others did too and I think 5.0 really nailed it to them when more people stopped spending and left the game that got them into gear and try to make group content again and do more direct sales as we see now.

 

The message is this: companies do things for their customers when they stop spending, not when they spend. So oddly you need to stop giving them money to make things better. They don't use their profits to invest into the game but to create bigger profit margins. Once you see through that illusion, you see that the only really harmful thing to games and their quality is putting so much money into crates or boxes. It allows them to sit back and be lazy.

 

You have to make them work for their money or they don't work. We've seen that for too long. And by the way I don't mean the actual developers that are underpaid and overworked. It's the management levels I look at for this bull.

 

But yeh we got taken for a ride for a long time. We made up our own excuses like supporting the game or that the game couldn't exist without this to make us feel ok about spending ridiculous amounts of money on this. Now if you have the money and don't care that's fine, but don't think for one minute rng loot boxes are needed to make a game successful or stay alive. That's pure greed talking there.

 

Well, I don't claim that RNG lootboxes are needed to keep the game alive. Cartel market, however, is. After all, this game used to be pay-to-play, but it just wasn't working, so they decided to go with the current model. Now, if they are forced to throw RNG out of the window, I'm guessing we're gonna be dealing with changing direct sales with higher prices. That would make me very unhappy.

 

I agree with you that buying stuff you don't agree with just to "support the game" is not the right way to go. If you want to support the direct sales instead of RNG, buy direct sales. If you want to support the content and not the cartel market, keep an ongoing subscription.

 

And that's what I do. I subscribe, because I enjoy the content I get by subscribing. I also buy a lot of unlocks after buying stuff from the GTN, because collections is amazing for someone like me who happens to have 254 alts. AND i buy stuff like grand companion customization packs, gold armor packs and the occasional sale item because I like those things, too. I would rather just have cosmetic items be available in-game and not pay for anything but my subscription, but since that was not viable, I support the alternatives I happen to like.

[Sareeph]

Against the ToS yes but have you never wondered why gaming companies cannot shut down those sites? And just because it's against the ToS doesn't change my point at all.

 

When it comes to gambling different countries have different rules. In my country one of the stipulations for it being gambling is whether or not you can make real money with it. From that point of view being able to monetize items is an element to consider. I agree with you though that the risk taking factor is key as well.

 

What are the other stipulations? With you posting only part I could say that me going to work is gambling. Also, one can dissect a whole and come up with differing conclusions based upon the dissection but as a whole the meaning of things can be quite different.

 

Besides, your statement was that because someone could take an item in their possession and sell it for real money makes it more like gambling. Them opening the pack and hoping for something they could sell is the actual gamble.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Sareeph

[Suzsi]

The sooner they spend less time making 1000 crappy items and 1 good item for rng boxes the sooner they can spend more time on the real things like awesome game content.. the better off we will all be, including the games that keep falling because of time away from the important things in fav of trying to make a quick buck. Edited November 25, 2017 by Suzsi