If you thought that EA’s FIFA successor would do away with loot boxes, you’d be dead wrong. In a move tha꧅t has surpri♋sed exactly nobody, some format of Ultimate Team will return in the game formerly known as FIFA 24, and the packs that earn the developer so much money will return with it. This time, however, they’re going to be so much worse.
I’m not proud of how many FIFA Points I buy. It’s ꧒not a problem, I spend well within my means, but every 20 quid I throw at the latest promo comes with instant regret when I don’t pack the supercharged Darwin Núñez or Ian Rush on my first go. Those 20 quids add up. Never insurmountably, but it’s easy to see how some people can find themself in serious🥃 trouble thanks to video game FOMO.
EA is doubling down on the loot boxes – or ‘surprise mechanics’ as it calls them – by reportedly introducing Dynamic Packs to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:EA Sports FC 24. These leaked packs are, in essence, a pity mechanicဣ. Many gacha games offer similar ideas, where if you open a certain number of packs, a rare pull is guaranteed. Apex Legends, EA’s other loot box simulator, does just that for its prestigious heirlooms. The chances of getting one are infinitesimally small, but if you open 500 packs, you’re guaranteed to get a pity heirloom. This not only keeps players playing the game, it keeps them opening packs.
This not only devalues the cosmetic in question – you can just buy an heirloom by dropping £350 on Apex Coins or dropping seven grand to guarantee getting them all – it’s the lat🐬est iteration of a predatory mechanic.
꧂In FIFA, or EA Sports FC I should say, this is going to be shown via the percentage chances listed next to every pack. It’s a legal requirement to tell players the chances they have of getting a certain reward from a loot box, a requirement that EA skirts around by simply writing “>0.1%” next to the promo slot. And you know that the one time you do hit that so-called jackpot, it’ll be some useless fodder card like Yeray.
In future, though, this percentage🅺 will increase as you open more packs without hitting a certain card. The example that leaker FUTZone uses is pulling a 90+ card. I🌌f you have a five percent chance to pull a 90+ card in every pack but you don’t pull one after opening 15 packs, that percentage will increase.
While this seems generous of EA – a better chance of pulling bigger cards? Sign me up! – it’s an extension of the FOMO. If you’ve spent all your FIFA Points and pulled n🐻othing, the knowledge that your next big card is even closer than it was before you started will encourage you to buy another round. There’s a reason that premium currency is only ever available in strange increments, too. The fact you have to buy two bundles to afford a specific pack is not coincidence. Spend some money, open some packs, miss out on Darwin Núñez, notice you’re one percent closer to packing a FUT Birthday player, spend more money, rinse, repeat.
Dynamic Packs are the inevitable evolution of EA preying on FIFA players’ FOMO, and if they do come into fruition with EA Sports FC, it’s a bad sign for the industry. Live-service titles often rely on microtransactions in order to keep the servers running, but the more predatory they become, the more this industry fails its players. Dynamic Packs might seem like a good thing initially, but they’re a sorry excuse for scrapin🌳g the bottoms of our pockets for a handful of extra pennies.