EA decided to remove microtransactions from Star Wars Battlefront 2 after the loot box fiasco back in November. Recently, the company announced that they would soon be revealing their new progression system soon, but before that, EA has decided to talk about loot boxes.
During yesterday’s EA Earnings Call, EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen commented that EA does not see loot boxes as gambling, that EA is not the only company utilizing them, and that “plenty of governments around the world” agree that loot boxes are not gambling.
On top of that, Jorgensen believes that “some” might be misconstruing live services as gambling mechanisms or loot boxes.
We do not believe that loot boxes and similar mechanics are form of gambling. I think there are a plenty of governments around the world that have agreed with us on that. And there isn’t just us it is the entire industry. We work very carefully and closely with all of our industry partners and the ESA the industry body to make sure that people understand exactly what loot boxes are, exactly why they are not gambling and we will continue to engage in that going forward. We think that’s important and I think there is a lot of consumers who would argue the same thing based on their great experience they have with fun games to have associated live services with them, that some may be misconstruing as a loot box or a gambling mechanism.”
As for which agencies agree that loot boxes are not gambling, both the ESRB and PEGI associations agreed that the implementation of loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront 2 was not gambling. The gambling commissions in Belgium and UK said otherwise. The loot box controversy in Star Wars Battlefront 2 also spurred a State Representative in the United States to pursue new laws to stop predatory microtransaction practices.
Despite the drama, Star Wars Battlefront 2 still saw decent sales numbers in December 2017.
