‘FIFA 22’ packs use “wide arsenal of tricks” to exploit players, says report

nme.com:

FIFA 22 packs for pressuring players into making in-game purchases and being misleading about their odds of getting particular rewards.Published yesterday (May 31), the report offers an investigation into “how the gaming industry exploits consumers using loot boxes” and uses two games – FIFA 22 and Raid: Shadow Legends – as case studies embodying the industry’s “manipulative” practices regarding loot boxes.The NCC says the practice often involves “targeting loot boxes and manipulative practices at kids” and using “layers of virtual currencies to mask or distort real-world monetary costs”.The report goes on to identify FIFA 22 as a case study for this behaviour, and accuses developer EA of employing “a wide arsenal of tricks to push consumers into spending as much time and money as possible exploiting consumers hope to receive the reward despite a miniscule chance and likelihood to do so.”FIFA 22 allegedly markets its packs by aggressively trying to trigger players’ fear of missing out, and the report claims EA’s transparency mechanics are “meaningless probability disclaimers” that do not actually tell players the specific probability of getting desired 90+ rated cards.Going on, the NCC claim that even when players get their desired reward from a pack, they rarely stay valuable due to “power creep over the FIFA gameplay cycle” that slowly introduces stronger and stronger cards.“This creates a continuous gameplay loop, where players are continuously encouraged to open packs in the hope of obtaining upgraded cards to keep up with other players,” condemns the report.It’s also alleged that because FIFA‘s pack probabilities are “dynamically generated”, they “can potentially be manipulated in real time based on any number of.