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EA criticized for promoting micro transactions in a toy store catalogue for kids

EA criticized for promoting micro transactions in a toy store catalogue for kids

https://twitter.com/StoneoLFC/status/1309928050520477698?s=20

According to a recent article by VGC (Video Game Chronicle), A in-shop game catalogue/magazine for kids in the UK Toy retailer ‘Smyths’, features an advertisement for FIFA 21, which is a four step guide to “Create Your Ultimate Team”. The advertisement  promotes micro transactions by encouraging kids to“ use FIFA Points to open packs”.

A twitter user @AllFifaMistakes shared a image, which was supposedly originally posted on reddit. Another user @StoneoLFC pointed out saying this has happened before.

The four step guide for creating ultimate team in FIFA shown in the image clearly asks to use FIFA points to open packs on step 2, which require micro transactions.

A Reddit user ‘Adziboy’ says, “I don’t care if people buy packs or not, but it feels extra greedy to have this as the advert in a kids toy brochure. It’s literally “step 2″ in their guide to play the game”.

Another Reddit user ‘freakedmind’ expressed his strong discontent, saying, “Yeah I find this extremely wrong as not only is it in a kid’s magazine, but they are actually saying that you should go about the game by buying points and opening packs. Normalizing in game purchases for kids since an early age is so f***ing unethical.”

Ultimate Team is said to bring a lot of revenue for EA Games. Daniel Ahmad shared via twitter, EA’s net revenue earned from ‘Ultimate Team’.

According to the above tweet EA is consistently making more and more revenue with ‘Ultimate Team’ each year, making $1.49 B in fiscal year 2020.

This is not the first time EA is under fire, for alleged “predatory lootbox practices” in the past, for lawsuits filed by former employees for exploitation, overtime pay and whatnot. Most European countries and some in the rest of the world have already classified lootboxes as gambling and applied regulatory laws. A class action lawsuit was recently filed against EA in the state of California. The lawsuit stated EA’s ‘Ultimate Team Modes’ breaches gambling laws.

Trying to persuade children to make micro transactions is really damaging the already bad image of Electronic Arts. Over the years, EA has gained a derogatory nickname as the “Evil Empire” for all of its business practices.

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