EA loot boxes are back in the spotlight after a senior executive at Electronic Arts told the United Kingdom’s Parliament that the company does not actually look at loot boxes as a bad thing, rather as “surprise mechanics”.
EA claims its loot boxes are “quite ethical and quite fun. Enjoyable to people”. The conversation came about when Kerry Hopkins, VP of legal and government affairs at EA responded to a member of Parliament when asked whether the publisher had any “ethical qualms” about loot boxes.
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Hopkins went onto compare loot boxes to products such as Kinder Eggs, you know those ones with the tasty chocolate outside and a toy in the middle. “People like surprises,” she said.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”#85FF04″ class=”” size=”21″]“We do think the way we’ve implemented these kinds of mechanics is quite ethical and quite fun. They aren’t gambling and we disagree that there’s evidence that shows they lead to gambling.”[/perfectpullquote]
After everything that EA has been through since its 2017 release of Star Wars: Battlefront II and it’s controversial loot box scandal, you would think the people at the company would stop defending their malicious mechanics but Kerry Hopkins still thinks otherwise.
The British Parliament is currently investigating loot boxes for the very concern that they might fall into gambling and could potentially harm children. This is after the rise in global evidence and research that is not working in the mechanic’s favour.
It is great to know that EA has still not learnt anything at all after multiple failed games, countless loot box fiascos and shameless PR stunts. Moving in the right direction.
