At the end of the day, though, they can still play the game freely. No one is forcing anyone to spend money on loot boxes. EA/Respawn/Anyone can charge whatever premium they want because they are purely cosmetic and have zero impact on the gameplay. It's purely icing. If they have people willing to pay the premium for their cosmetic loot box offerings, then they're well within their right to continue charging what they want.
If you don't like, then don't buy it. If it's outside of the spending threshold one has set for themselves, then they won't (or shouldn't) buy it. If they do buy it anyway, then they've found a threshold. Voila!
The people who are willing to pay are often times children, who are taught gambling addiction, or adult gamblers who have a problem that is being exploited.
There is no systems in place by these companies to reach out to such people and say "hey, you're spending a lot on our game recently. Here are some resources on gambling addiction". It's 100% a system made to exploit fans.
And yes, it's just cosmetics in a f2p game. Im actually surprised that EA is getting such backlash, but it's clear that previous EA games have added up to the outrage here. At some point, it becomes about the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Notice that there are companies like Activision that have got away with exploiting their customers.
What started out as "just cosmetics" in a $60 paid game has turned to selling DLC weapons that are overpowered and dominating lobbies in Black Ops 4.
So what do kids do when they are beaten by a 1-shot weapon? They spend money on lootboxes to buy it
But oh look, a few weeks after the devs nerf the overpowered weapon, that was obviously overpowered to anyone who would have playtested it.
Now all that money you spent trying to get a weapon is worth nothing.
Do people really think that the devs at Treyarch dont know what they are doing? They have taken complete advantage of gambling, and then screwed those people over. Imagine being that kid who spent around $60 (generous amount) to get lucky enough to get the weapon.
All of a sudden it's nerfed and that $60 is wasted. How is this not blatantly illegal?
Oh, let's not forget that these companies PAY the top youtubers to open up lootboxes on stream, and if Im not mistaken (and I could have misremembered this), they are able to bend the odds in that streamer's favour (I cant find the link for this, and I could be wrong).
What's to stop this from happening at Respawn? The people at Treyarch are COMPLETELY SILENT on this issue by the way. They know better than to start talking about their monetization.
In fact, this is also the theme with IW and the new COD.
There is ZERO TALK by the devs on forums about monetization. We know activision adds things AFTER reviews and day-one purchases. Yet the COD community has completely stayed silent and allowed this to happen.
