What is Surprise Mechanics?

Hi all,

Today I would like to talk about "Surprise Mechanics" which basically stands for a synonym of very known and corporate "popular" loot boxes.

At first, I thought this is a late April Fool's joke - unfortunately, it turns out - it's not and that EA is very serious about this new way of how to get more money from players. They even claim that this new gambling "Surprise" mechanics is "quite ethical".

Regards to the ethical question - if you haven't seen video from UK parliament yet then feel free and click here: EA responds to "Surprise Mechanics" to see EA's response. One of the question from UK parliament to EA was: "Do you consider loot boxes to be an ethical feature of your games?"

...to be honest, I wasn't surprised at all when they were replying with "...they are just like a Kinder Eggs".

Yup, they are just like Kinder Surprise eggs for children which is completely no big deal and has nothing to do with gambling! I have seen the whole video of EA responses to UK parliament regarding this matter and I must say their all answers were lead in a disgusting way from the EA side. They completely forget how many players playing their games, how much money you may spend for one day on loot boxes and of course denying all accuses. You are even able to see how long do they think before they reply and struggling with words just to get away from questions of UK parliament.

Rebranding loot boxes to surprise mechanics, comparing them to kinder egg and adding "ethical" word into it - it's just a new level of low - congratulation EA - you once again showed it's all about money, no matter what:



I really like comments below this meme:

not__nsa said: 
They're going to fight as long as possible as they can, even if it makes them look like idiots.
Because it will make them money. And that's all that matters.

devon752 said:
As long as people are stupid enough to buy that s*** they'll keep making it.

lubu523 said:

This is not a bank robbery, this is a surprise withdraw


I even found UK petition which stands for: Adapt gambling laws to include gambling in video games which targets children; Many video game companies in recent years have introduced mechanics which are essentially gambling of which are targeted at children and vulnerable adults. While not currently considers gambling by law they do copy many traits to make them as addictive and can lead to real money being lost/earned. More info: Gambling in video games mostly involves 'loot boxes' where players use virtual currency (often bought with real money) to earn in-game items often worth less than what they paid (sometimes more) hence it's gambling. Currently, only China has introduced new laws to force companies to display the odds of winning which had been standard in the UK gambling industry for years - I believe that there are more petitions against those "mechanics" coming our way.

Hopefully, those slot machine mechanics in the gaming world will be banned soon.

As always, thank you for reading and have a good day!

~Lucas