The small gathering of players have cited their dissatisfaction with FIFA Ultimate Team’s pack luck, button delay and the script

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is coming toward the end of this month, and everything I’ve heard about the game to date has made me keener on it. There’s the return of a proper, gritty, hard-hitting single player campaign, missing from last year’s multiplayer-centric Black Ops 4. There’s cross-play with all three of the bigger platforms, letting PC, Xbox and …

The removal of loot boxes from the popular rocket-powered sports game coincides with the inclusion of a new in-game store and blueprints for added transparency.

EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront II not only holds the record for the most downvoted Reddit comment in existence, but its initial release, which relied on predatory microtransactions and dodgy loot boxes brought discussion about loot boxes to the mainstream. Since then, we’ve seen Benelux countries outright banned the things. The UK and the US have largely remained firm in their …

The latest trailer for NBA 2K20 showed off the game’s MyTeam mode and made excessive use of some heavy-handed gambling imagery. Honestly, it’s a trailer only someone who’s been living in a cave the last two years could have produced. Despite the ongoing controversy and vitriol from the public towards “surprise mechanics”. The NBA 2K20 MyTeam trailer, which showed off …

In the last couple of months, video game publishers have been hammered with controversy over the use of those poop boxes (I am totes mature). Faced with a mounting backlash and a riot from fans after the Battlefront 2 straw that broke the camel’s back in 2017, EA has begun to roll back on using that extra dash for cash within a select few games, with Need for Speed Heat joining the list.

Last week, we told you that the major platform holders – that’s Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo – had made it so that in the future, publishers wouldn’t be able to release games on their hardware that didn’t explicitly disclose loot box odds. Joining them would be a number of publishers aligned to the ESA, who also pledged to disclose loot box odds in the future. Those publishers include Activision Blizzard, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Bungie, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, and Warner Bros. Conspicuous by its absence is Epic Games. Now, in a separate statement, they’ve said they would be implementing a similar policy in future.

Loot boxes are a contentious issue. Some feel that they’re a harmless way to monetise games beyond the initial sale. Others feel that they’re akin to gambling, exploiting the dopamine rushes they incite in people to nickel-and-dime them, extracting blood from a proverbial stone. They’ve been banned in some countries, and it’s forced publishers and developers to change how they implement their loot boxes.