EA won a lawsuit over allegedly affecting difficulty in FUT -apkrig
In mid-last November, we briefed you on three lawsuits – one Canadian and two American – against Electronic Arts. They all concerned the situation around loot boxes, albeit from a slightly different point of view. The first, a Canadian one, dealt with the EA procedure itself and possible violations of the lottery law through loot boxes. The second challenged the same thing, but from the point of view of the laws in force in California. Finally, the third came up with the accusation that Electronic Arts uses a system of dynamic difficulty change in its games, which in turn stimulates interest in buying more packages in Ultimate Team modes, so that the player does not feel disadvantaged and wins again after an unacknowledged increase in difficulty. And it was the last of these disputes that has now come to an end, with developer lawyers leaving the courtroom as winners.
According to Games Industry magazine, the patent for a system called Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment was specifically discussed during the lawsuit. It dates from 2017 and in its description we find indications of how it works – based on a heuristic analysis of the individual’s behavior, mood, degree of boredom or frustration, the difficulty is adjusted, which maximizes player involvement in digital titles. EA simply wants players to spend as much time with the game as possible, which for some means reducing claims and for others increasing them. However, the complainant considered that the adjustment of the difficulty also took place in multiplayer matches, which it considered a predatory practice in connection with the purchase of new packages with better players.
However, Electronic Arts managed to prove in court that the difficulty was not adjusted due to artificial intelligence or the mechanisms of the described patent, and this was enough for the court to close the case in favor of the authors of sports titles. “Although EA holds a patent for DDA technology, it has never been part of the FIFA, Madden, or NHL series, and never will,” EA officials said in a statement. They further explained that they would never use the DDA to give players an advantage or disadvantage in online matches, which was subsequently confirmed by documentation and statements from independent experts. On the other hand, this does not mean that the developers from Electronic Arts should win and the remaining disputes mentioned in the introduction are still ongoing. Of course, the fact that in some countries EA has already had to take concrete steps towards the operation or distribution of loot boxes cannot go unnoticed, and the debate is certainly not over.
Former EA Sports boss Peter Moore last commented on it, saying loot boxes were a long way from gambling. He said that people love this mechanism and are fascinated by the uncertainty of what they can find in the package. “The golden package [ve FUT] you buy or get it by playing, open it and you are either happy or upset that it was standing [jeho obsah] for nothing, “Moore said in early January, causing a great deal of controversy among fans. Compared to the statements of some of his colleagues, the words of Peter Moore sounded like they were from a planet where the defect of loot boxes was never solved and it was not discussed how accidental the reward element affects especially younger players.
