Collective Legal Actions Against Electronic Arts

When we download new games, we want them to be decent. But Electronic Arts attests that it’s not always the case. In recent years, the company has gotten into several massive scandals and dealt with class actions. Let’s see what those were about.

Deceitful Loot Boxes

Gamers always want quick and effective results. This is proven everywhere. Or what is the other reason for the crazy popularity of fast-payout casinos?

The same is true with EA Baseball games. To dominate it, players must have strong teams assembled through opening packs.

Each pack contains cards (representing players) of different quality. The rarer the card, the more effective a player will be. Everyone who opens them strives to get the rarest drops.

But there is an issue. EA Sports doesn’t depict any odds for the card drops. But players wouldn’t raise this problem until the case we’re about to tell you.

EA has launched a marketing campaign aimed at increasing the number of pack sales. The main selling point was raised rare card drops by the X number of times. What’s wrong with it?

Players didn’t know the initial chances of card drops. So they couldn’t understand what the increase was. Still, many were deceived and bought hundreds of packs.

But when players felt they were not getting enough desired cards, the scandal emerged. Openers were creating Reddit pages addressing the issue. Class actions were initiated.

How could EA avoid these issues? They should’ve simply created some table representing original card drop odds. For instance:

Sadly for EA, that’s not the last loot box issue they will have. The second hit was from an unexpected side, yet again about boxes.

Unlawful Lootboxes Selling

On September 30, 2020, Electronic Arts was dragged into its second class action lawsuit regarding loot boxes. The plaintiffs were Mark Sutherland and Shawn Moore. They’ve accused Electronic Arts of an illegal gambling business in Canada

How could they state it? Well, they’ve interpreted loot boxes as the gambling system. And it made sense.

Basically, a loot box system is a game inside a game. It asks you to spend your real money, which triggers an RNG (random number generator) to define your prize. Doesn’t it remind you of anything?

Online games on Malta casino work in the same way. Let’s look at slot machines. After you pay your real cash for the bet, the slot spins. RNG will define its outcome. As a result, you get a random reward.

If the plaintiffs’ theory was proved, EA would be in big trouble. According to the laws of Canada, online gambling platforms:

• Available only starting from 18 years old;

• Must be licensed;

• Must inform its users about gambling addiction and gaming odds.

Obviously, EA doesn’t follow any of these rules. And the worst part is that younger players love the boxes, which means they are developing a gambling addiction.

We definitely see a point here. But luckily for EA, the case hadn’t prohibited loot box sales in Canada. What do you think about this whole situation?

Unplayable Battlefield 2042

Battlefield is one of the most popular gaming franchises of the EA Games. But one of the recent games, Battlefield 2042, turned out to be a complete failure on release. Here is the issue.

When you’re the first to purchase the game, you are doing a favor to a developer. You give him your hard-earned cash for his fresh product. Yet you don’t know if it is worth it. You just believe.

Developers must know how it works. So their games should come out polished and welcoming. It didn’t happen to Battlefield 2042.

Thousands of gamers have claimed that the game is “unplayable.” It was full of bugs. It is not what you expect from the $70 game.

Discontent Turns Into Petitions

This has caused a petition with more than 160,000 signs. The case has almost reached court. It needed 40,000 more signs. But we guess that not so many players were outraged by the game.

Weak Outcome

EA had to reply. They’ve said they’re committed to pushing up the quality of the game. Obviously, they’ve got no choice here.

Also, EA have delayed their first game’s season. This is a relatively competitive event, so the game had to be polished before it started. The case has found no continuation.

Bottom Line

Even though Electronic Arts was a reputable developer in its early years, the abovementioned cases have worsened its image. And that’s quite fair. Now you know what to expect when buying a new EA game.