[petercooper]

I'm a FIFA player and this is a complex situation. "Packs" in FIFA are not solely used for cosmetic items but for actual virtual players with distinct play characteristics.

EA are trying to turn FIFA into a eSports game (see the recent FIFA eWorld Cup) and the majority of play takes place in the "Ultimate Team" mode. To get the high calibre players you'd use to build up your experience and reputation in UT you either need to make a ton of coins to buy them or buy "FIFA points" with real money and open the packs.

It's pretty standard practice for the higher end players to throw money at these packs to build up teams early on, so I suspect this move will put Belgian players at a disadvantage (it's not a total nightmare as you can buy most players in 'standard' varieties for a lot less, just not the in-form ones you'd use in competition play).

Of course, at the end of the day, it's still just a game.. :-D

[daemin]

I don't see how they can have it both ways. Either the game is an eSport where the most skillful person wins, or they can have lootboxes where the person that spends the most wins.

So in the first case there is no super significant difference between the players on the field, which means there is no point to buy loot boxes to get better players.

Or in the second case it isn't really an eSport because the person that spends the most money (and is luckiest with the players that they get) will more likely win.

[petercooper]

There's a lot of debate over whether FIFA is viable as an eSport game for that reason (plus other issues like defence being largely controlled by AI and an array of RNG effects and gameplay glitches, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/94iwmo/esports_ready_...). It'll be interesting to see if/how FIFA 19 addresses this as even amongst some FIFA players, the idea of it being eSports worthy is laughable: https://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/99zcag/fifa_esports_n...

[edcarter]

What you are essentially describing is "pay to compete". Many sports have a barrier to entry to compete at the top levels. For example, take a look at Magic the Gathering. A top tier deck can cost thousands of dollars, but it only puts you on an even playing field with other top players. Past that point your success as a Magic player is based upon your skill and consistency.

[daemin]

Yes, but you can buy those cards and decks directly without having to pay thousands of dollars more in boosters in order to find those cards.

It's the difference between going to the shop and buying the thing you want versus going to a casino and pulling a slot machine handle until you get lucky and win the prize that you want.

[jpz]

It’s not just the Belgians, if it stands up there that will be the thin edge of the wedge.

The issue is the one of random drops for real money. It’s easy to see that has a gambling element to it.

[petercooper]

Yes, it's easy to drop money on packs and either get a pack of duds or (less often) an amazing player. I tend to get quite lucky spending a few hundred pounds in total, but there are videos of YouTubers dropping £1000+ in a day and barely getting anything interesting.

A workaround would be for EA to simply officially sell the game's "coins" instead of packs in affected territories.. but then you'd have the opposite effect of players there getting a major advantage :-D

[pdkl95]

> A workaround would be for EA to simply officially sell the game's "coins"

Preventing this kind of workaround is already part of many gambling laws. They usually define the payment/stake/wager as a very generic term like "anything of value". For example, in NV (as a stereotypical representation of a locale allows gambling), the law defines[1]:

>> “Representative of value” means any instrumentality used by a patron in a game whether or not the instrumentality may be redeemed for cash.

>> “Wager” means a sum of money or representative of value that is risked on an occurrence for which the outcome is uncertain.

Any type of in-game "coin" still represents value to the people playing the game, so trading them for lootboxes with uncertain contents is still a "wager".

The gaming industry could solve a lot of this mess if they simply *sold people the game (or game pieces) directly as a defined product. Of course, that wouldn't exploit the human weakness to operant conditioning[2]... ~sigh~

[1] https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-463.html#NRS463Sec01862

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

[petercooper]

Preventing this kind of workaround is already part of many gambling laws. They usually define the payment/stake/wager as a very generic term like "anything of value".

Ah, maybe I'm misunderstanding the concepts involved, but coins in FIFA are more directly convertible into the end result, more like buying a currency. With "coins" you can buy players directly in the game for a known value on a marketplace (you can also buy packs, but this could be disabled).

With the current system (where you buy "FIFA points") you can only use the FIFA points to open packs of "random" players, which is where the gambling element comes in.