FIFA 22 loot boxes condemned for needing £11,500 to get just one player card

metro.co.uk:

A report backed by 18 countries asks that loot boxes either face stricter regulations or be banned altogether.

Despite their widespread use, loot boxes remain a highly controversial element of modern video game design. To the point where simply not having them is considered a selling point and worthy of praise.

There have been efforts to recognise them as a form of gambling here in the UK and some countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have outright banned them. Recently, this led to Activision cancelling the release of Diablo Immortal in those countries, so as not to break any laws.

It may be an old topic, but critics aren’t going anywhere. In fact, 18 European countries have backed a report which accuses the gaming industry of exploiting and manipulating consumers with loot boxes.

In particular, it singles out EA’s FIFA 22 and its Ultimate Team mode (where players can purchase packs to obtain new players to form their own team) and mobile game Raid: Shadow Legends (where new characters can be randomly obtained by spending virtual currency).

Most of the arguments the report makes aren’t new, as it highlights how these types of game take advantage of FOMO (fear of missing out) and psychologically manipulate players into spending more money to obtain especially rare items and character.

One example it gives is the Team of the Year Kylian Mbappe card in FIFA 22. The report believes that, with the probability of getting one from a Jumbo Rare Player pack being only 0.11%, a player would, on average, have to buy 847 of them to get it.

That’s 1.7 million FIFA points, which comes to roughly €13,500 (just under £11,500). We don’t need to explain why that’s an obscene amount of money for just one card.

It even cites the leaked EA