A new class-action lawsuit in the District of Northern California has been made against EA. The suit alleges that in FIFA, Madden NFL, and NHL, all which use a variation of EA's Ultimate Team scheme, the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment alogritm that adjusts the length of matches based on how well the player's team is performing is purposely tuned to limit players from earning Ultimate Team player packs in-game (as rewards for playing), thus drawing them to purchase these packs instead through microtransactions.
"EA's undisclosed use of Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms deprives gamers who purchase Player Packs of the benefit of their bargains because EA's Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms, rather than only the stated ranking of the gamers' Ultimate Team players and the gamers' relative skill, dictates, or at least highly influences the outcome of the match.This is a self-perpetuating cycle that benefits EA to the detriment of EA Sports gamers, since Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms make gamers believe their teams are less skilled than they actually are, leading them to purchase additional Player Packs in hopes of receiving better players and being more competitive."
The suit further alleges that EA does not disclose the use of this technology to players, which for those unaware of its existance may be mislead by its practice.
More details at GamesIndustry.biz
This is not the only lawsuit that EA has on loot boxes: another class-action lawsuit in California asserts its loot boxes in FIFA and other games break the state's gambling laws; a new lawsuit in Canada also asserts their games with loot boxes is equivalent to gambling, and in the Netherlands, EA has vowed to appeal a ruling that would fine them 500k Euro a week up to 5M Euro if they fail to remove loot boxes from FIFA in that country.
