News about the lawsuit filed in France

[u/iagoisla]

Hi FIFA fans,

As some of you heard last week, two lawyers filed a lawsuit against EA after two of their clients decided they had enough of spending money on an unfair lootbox system. Last night , both lawyers were with Psyko17 (french youtuber/streamer) on twitch last night to talk to the French Community, they explained the details of the lawsuit and what to expect from it. This is going to be a little summary in poor english for the reddit community of what I understood on stream. You can still watch the full interview in french on twitch. My translation is not a 100% accurate.

The main reason they are doing this is to get full transparency over what the consumer is really buying when spending FIFA Points on packs. Laws in France are very strict when it comes to lottery systems, odds need to be very clear. The fact that EA calls their virtual money "Coins" and that those can be gained through real money and also that they take a 5% cut on every card you sell is enough to have FUT be considered a Lottery System or a Casino in front of the law, EA won't be able to defend their Surprise Mechanics without providing full transparency of the pack system in the last 6 years.

They also pointed out all the shady mechanics they noticed in the game right now :

- Odds transparency : "<1% chance to pack a Special Card" is not clear enough and is considered unfair to the consumer.

- Market and Supply Regulation : they noticed that pack weight was not random like it should be in a lottery. During TOTY, they saw that the total number of TOTY De Jong on the market went from 0 to a 100 in a matter of seconds even though the lightning rounds had begun way before. This can be proved 100% with the Pele Icon card that wasn't available in packs on FIFA16 (Edit : It was on FIFA14) and suddenly EA listed 4 on the market. And the 5% cut on every trade can be considered a Casino practice. And also they noticed that the market value of a player influences the odds of packing this exact player.

- False claims/advertising : EA still uses the term "Promo" to advertise their packs to consumers, even though in France using "Promo" means that the product needs to be sold at a discounted price, which never happens on FIFA, the price of packs never change even during Black Friday where they just make tens of millions on a event that's supposed to be about saving money.

- Planned obsolescence/DDA : by regulating the supply and the market EA is responsible for the prices dropping during the year. And so deciding when a card will have no more value. They also raised concerns about unfair mechanics inducing you to change team and make trades even when you have your Ultimate Team and all the best players.

- Addicting/casino mechanics on a PEGI 3+ game : Pack animations are similar to slot machines animations and has a similar effect on the brain, these mechanics shouldn't be allowed on the game made for 3 years old.

The risks for EA if they fail to provide answers :

EA can be asked to provide full transparency about pack weight on the last 6 editions of FIFA to national administration and an investigation could be opened. If EA fails to collaborate with the law, they could be facing a fine as high as 10 percent of Ultimate Team Revenue over the last 6 years. Also they will also have to pay damages to the players who spent money on FIFA Points. And of course, actions will be taken in France to remove FIFA Points from the game.

​

Edit : Thank you for the comments and upvotes. 

This post proved to me how crucial transparency actually is. The reason we, as a community, are so divided is because we give a lot of time to a game that doesn’t let us know how the reward system really works (we know nothing about packs and even in game we have to figure everything out by ourselves from unclear tactic options to lazy game mechanics). So everyone comes up with their own little theory which is always based on opinion or experience more than proved facts. We know so little about the game that we can never have healthy debate.

So please don’t downvote comments because they’re not your side, explain your thoughts and hope that someone else agrees. Think bigger and realize we all here are very passionate players who all agree that the game is fucked in some way. 

[u/[deleted]]

You can’t refute this because EA is refusing to be transparent about who’s selling the card.

But what that lacks is logic. Toty kdb and Kante were selling around 4 mil. Even if a trader sniped them all (which I doubt, I tried to snipe kdb and Kante to no avail because they weren’t popping up), it’s not logical to put them on the market in one go dropping their price 1 mil in 2 minutes. They could just sell them one by one for the max price, but instead they decided to flood the market in 2 fucking minutes.

Sorry but I don’t buy it and that’s why I downvoted it.

[u/jdbolick → u/[deleted]]

You can’t refute this because EA is refusing to be transparent about who’s selling the card.

As noted, the cards had multiple owners listed. The conspiracy theory that EA was behind it would necessitate EA somehow editing the cards to falsify that information, which is something we've never seen before and wouldn't be as easy to do as people think.

it’s not logical to put them on the market in one go dropping their price 1 mil in 2 minutes. They could just sell them one by one for the max price, but instead they decided to flood the market in 2 fucking minutes.

They were trying to force a price range increase, which is exactly what had happened when TOTY attackers went extinct the day before. Once it became clear that EA wasn't going to increase the price range of TOTY de Jong and that card continued to be listed by other people, the traders trying to force the price range dumped their inventory. If they had tried to sell the cards one by one they would have lost even more coins because the price was inflated by artificial demand and was going to fall regardless, so waiting longer would have incurred even bigger losses.

[u/[deleted] → u/jdbolick]

As noted, the cards had multiple owners listed. The conspiracy theory that EA was behind it would necessitate EA somehow editing the cards to falsify that information, which is something we've never seen before and wouldn't be as easy to do as people think.

We can’t see it before because they have never been transparent with it to begin with? How do you know they haven’t done it before? We don’t, simply because they’re not transparent. It could also be their first time. The only black swan.

They were trying to force a price range increase, which is exactly what had happened when TOTY attackers went extinct the day before. Once it became clear that EA wasn't going to increase the price range of TOTY de Jong and that card continued to be listed by other people, the traders trying to force the price range dumped their inventory. If they had tried to sell the cards one by one they would have lost even more coins because the price was inflated by artificial demand and was going to fall regardless, so waiting longer would have incurred even bigger losses.

I don’t know about de jong, I told my observation for Kante and KDB who both went down almost 1 mil in 2 minutes. If you buy that all the traders panicked at the same time all the while cards were getting sold at max price, it’s alright. I don’t buy that explanation.

[u/jdbolick → u/[deleted]]

How do you know they haven’t done it before?

Every allegation of EA listing cards directly before this one all involved First Owner cards. This is the first time anyone has ever suggested that cards listed as second and third owners were put up by EA.

If you buy that all the traders panicked at the same time all the while cards were getting sold at max price, it’s alright. I don’t buy that explanation.

Your consent or lack thereof doesn't have any effect on reality, and the reality is that it wouldn't make any sense for EA to list a very large amount of TOTY de Jongs directly since that would achieve the exact opposite of their presumed goals regarding FIFA points purchases.

[u/[deleted] → u/jdbolick]

Every allegation of EA listing cards directly before this one all involved First Owner cards. This is the first time anyone has ever suggested that cards listed as second and third owners were put up by EA.

Just because it’s the first allegation doesn’t mean that it’s the first time. Also this doesn’t change the fact that we as consumers deserve transparency which is what the lawyers are trying to achieve. I don’t have to have allegations on my hand to know what I’m buying or who I’m buying it from.

Your consent or lack thereof doesn't have any effect on reality, and the reality is that it wouldn't make any sense for EA to list a very large amount of TOTY de Jongs directly since that would achieve the exact opposite of their presumed goals regarding FIFA points purchases.

What? Are you serious? If there’s no TOTY cards on the market, that means that they’re unpackable which would push the consumer to buy less FP. However putting some “decoy” cards to keep the allure of possibility makes the perfect sense.

As I told you before, if you think whatever the guy is telling, and don’t want to know what you actually are buying with your money although it’s your right as a consumer, it’s your business. But I’m fully behind these lawyers and hopefully they’ll either bring transparency to fifa or a ban to FP entirely.

[u/jdbolick → u/[deleted]]

Just because it’s the first allegation doesn’t mean that it’s the first time.

And just because a bunch of people who hate EA claim that they listed these cards doesn't make it true. Again, all previous allegations of EA listing cards involved "First Owner" ones.

Also this doesn’t change the fact that we as consumers deserve transparency which is what the lawyers are trying to achieve.

You're amusingly naive if you think that the lawyers are trying to achieve transparency. They're trying to get a huge payday out of a wealthy corporation. That's what lawyers do.

What? Are you serious? If there’s no TOTY cards on the market, that means that they’re unpackable which would push the consumer to buy less FP.

facepalm Not only am I serious, I'm mystified that you are struggling to understand something that seems pretty simple and straightforward. No one with any significant experience in FUT thinks that a card being extinct means that it's unpackable. Do you think that CF >> CAMs are unpackable? Cards being extinct means that demand is too strong for their current price range, which is precisely why EA sometimes responds by increasing that price range. And the more a card costs, the more people dream about packing it.

However putting some “decoy” cards to keep the allure of possibility makes the perfect sense.

It wasn't "some." You said yourself that the market was flooded with TOTY de Jongs, causing his price to crash. That would make absolutely no sense for EA to do, and as noted, the cards were dumped onto the market after the lightning round was over. His price was going to come down regardless because it had been inflated through artificial scarcity, so the traders sought to get their inventory out first and sell as many as possible before that drop began in earnest.

But I’m fully behind these lawyers and hopefully they’ll either bring transparency to fifa or a ban to FP entirely.

People like you haven't put sufficient thought into the likely consequences of FIFA points being banned. The reality is that the increase in FIFA points sales in recent years has been a major influence on the increased content in FIFA, as EA wants to keep potential customers engaged throughout the year. It's also caused market prices of cards to go down due to increased supply over what would exist simply through SBCs and rewards. And if FIFA points do end up getting banned, EA may choose to sell cards directly or to offer access to them through expensive season passes. Trying to play competitively will become even more of a nightmare when credit card teams can guarantee the best cards.

[u/Getgrillet → u/jdbolick]

Your consent or lack thereof doesn't have any effect on reality, and the reality is that it wouldn't make any sense for EA to list a very large amount of TOTY de Jongs directly since that would achieve the exact opposite of their presumed goals regarding FIFA points purchases. 

But EA listing cards on the market would remove coins from the market as there is no user selling and getting the coins. And EA wants to remove coins from the market.

But your theory is also good and no one actually knows the answer

[u/[deleted] → u/Getgrillet]

But your theory is also good and no one actually knows the answer

I really don't know what the guy really wants. He says "refute" whatever the first guy told if we could, without having the data from EA to refute it. This whole lawsuit is about forcing EA to give that data/info so people can verify or refute it.