Soon you’ll know if your pack luck really is rubbish as EA will have to disclose FIFA pack odds. From May 2017 EA are going to have to disclose the probability of getting items packs if they want to continue selling FIFA 17 (and FIFA 18) in China.
The Chinese government have just passed regulations relating to online games that contain luck based packs and loot boxes etc.
The regulation is called “Notice of the Ministry of Culture on Regulating the Operation of Online Games and Strengthening the Supervision after the Event” (thanks Google Translate ;)) and the the section that directly impacts packs translates to:
“The online game operator shall promptly announce the name, performance, content, quantity, and the probability of extraction or composition of all virtual props and value-added services that may be extracted or synthesised on the official website of the game or the randomly selected pages. Publicity of the random extraction of relevant information should be true and effective.”
The regulations are due to come into affect in May 2017.
If EA follow the regulations they’ll have to disclose the odds of getting in form players, legends and walkouts as well as special occasion cards like TOTY and MOTM etc. It’s unlikely that they’ll have to disclose the odds of getting individual players like Messi and Ronaldo in FIFA packs unless however they have their own individual odds.
The regulations will also affect many other popular games like Hearthstone, Overwatch, CS:GO and Call of Duty.
EA have already been a lot more forthcoming with sharing information about FIFA 17 than in previous years. In FIFA 16 a glitch was discovered by the community where chemistry styles weren’t affecting the in game stats of certain players. EA patched the glitch and this year disclosed exactly how chemistry styles affect players even so far as including a table showing the affects of each chemistry card on each in game stat.
I’d like to think they’ll be as forthcoming with pack odds going forward but with FIFA Ultimate Team packs being one of the largest forms of EA’s income releasing any info that might effect that income is a decision that they’re not going to take lightly.
One other worry is that game producers increase the chances of getting high value items in China but use different probabilities for the rest of the world (without disclosing) leading to people buying packs based on misinformation.
What are your thoughts on the subject? Should EA be forced to release FIFA pack odds? If you knew how unlikely it was to pack an in form would you stop buying packs? Let me know in the comments!