Under increasing pressure from governments, child welfare groups and gaming charities, EA today added the ability to see what’s in FIFA 21 loot boxes before purchasing them. .
These Ultimate Team Preview Packs, as EA calls them, allow you to see all of the specific items in them before you decide to buy with FUT Coins or FIFA Points.
FUT Coins are virtual currency earned through gameplay. FIFA Points are virtual currency purchased with real money.
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Packs that are not directly obtained from the FUT Shop, such as Division Rivals rewards, or earned from an objective or SBC, will not be preview packs and will continue to function as they do. currently, EA said.
These packs are coming to FIFA 21 today as part of the ongoing in-game “FUTball Festival” and are the only type of pack available in the FUT Shop during the event. At the end of the campaign, other types of packs will return, EA added.
Here’s how it works: The names of the packs are familiar, but work differently. In the FUT Shop, you can select a preview pack to preview its contents. Previewing a pack doesn’t mean you’ve made the decision to buy it. Once you’ve chosen to preview the pack, you’ll see the pack opening animation, which you can watch or ignore.
After the opening animation of the pack, you see all the elements contained in the pack. If you decide to purchase the pack, you can now do so.
If you decide you want the pack and select Buy Pack, a final prompt asks you to confirm your purchase and choose to use either FUT Coins or FIFA Points. This is what it looks like:
(It should be noted that items found in preview packs are currently not showing whether they are duplicates or not.)
If you don’t purchase the pack, you will see that the previewed pack remains in the store, where it is now on a refresh timer. The timer must expire before you can preview another pack of the same type. In an example given by EA, a pack expired in 20 hours and 35 minutes.
You can re-view a previously previewed pack and have the option to purchase it as long as the preview is still active and the preview packs are still available in the FUT Store with a few exceptions, EA said.
One of those exceptions is limited time packs. Preview pack refresh timers will not display in case the pack time limit ends before the pack refresh window. So, if the time limit for the pack has expired, you can no longer purchase that pack. You will see a ‘Pack Expires In’ counter to indicate these times.
Another exception concerns limited quantity packs. If all of the available packs within a global limit were purchased before you made the decision to purchase the pack, you will no longer be able to purchase that pack. There is a ‘Packs Remaining’ counter to show where you are.
The result is: if the refresh timer is still active, you can either purchase the pack (then you can immediately preview another pack, if available) or wait for the refresh timer to expire. When it expires, you will then have the option to preview another pack.
The Preview Packs are one of Ultimate Team’s biggest upheavals since its inception and mark a significant shift in how the controversial – and very lucrative – the mode is monetized.
The change comes as governments put more and more pressure on the link between video game loot boxes and gambling. EA’s FIFA series is among ongoing investigations into the impact of loot boxes, especially on children, with many groups calling for a change in legislation to categorize loot boxes such as Ultimate Team packs as games of hazard.
It’s clear EA is testing the waters with changes in FIFA 21 in response to this scrutiny and ahead of the FIFA 22 reveal. In May, EA started selling FIFA 21 cosmetics outside of loot boxes for the first time.
In April, new research “has firmly verified” a link between loot boxes and compulsive gambling.
Researchers at the universities of Plymouth and Wolverhampton have said that loot boxes “are structurally and psychologically akin to gambling.” He also found that a large number of children were opening loot boxes.
FIFA allows you to spend real money on virtual card packs.
In the UK, the government is examining loot boxes to see if the law should be applied to them. In December 2019, the Ministry of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports launched a review of loot boxes alongside a broader review of the 2005 Gaming Act and announced in June 2020 a public call for evidence. The government has tasked the University of Abertay to assess this evidence, and the hope is that a report will be released by the end of this year. If so, the government could act at some point in 2022.
Although EA maintains that Ultimate Team’s loot boxes are not a game, in a recent regulatory financial document the company acknowledged that a change in the law could have a significant impact on its business.
All eyes are now on FIFA 22. Will fundamental changes in Ultimate Team monetization be implemented for the game? Will Preview Packs become the new standard packs for Ultimate Team in the future? If they are, will that be enough to push back the regulators?
Article source https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-06-18-ea-adds-ultimate-team-loot-boxes-that-let-you-see-all-items-before-you-buy-in-most-significant-shakeup-of-fifa-series-in-years