2nd Academic Article

Baker, Kelly. "The problem with microtransactions." UWIRE Text, 22 Oct. 2018, p. 1. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A559278634/AONE?u=auraria_main&sid=AONE&xid=7cd4d6fc. Accessed 21 Apr. 2019.

To elaborate on the last post concerning the particular company which refused to comply with the new Belgium law about gambling and microtransactions is of course EA. I found this academic article by Kelly which gave more details about the matter,"Video game companies have had the gaul to try to refute these new laws by refusing to comply and even encouraging players to speak out in their defense to the Belgian government by saying that the microtransactions the companies are implementing are simply "not gambling." These video game companies Kelly refers to are EA and 2k Games. While 2k Games has complied with the decision made by Belgium, they tried to convince their customers that it wasn't gambling. On the start up of the loading screen of NBA 2K19 in the Belgium and Netherlands version it says,"We will be continuing conversations with BGC in order to explain our view on how NBA 2K…already [complies] with local laws. If you agree, we recommend that you contact your local government representative to communicate your opinion.” Its sad a multi million dollar company is pleading with its audience to try and reverse a decision that helps gamers because they want to stuff their pockets with that much more money. EA though is much worse because they outright refused to comply with the new law saying simply,"We don't believe that FIFA Ultimate Team or loot boxes are gambling." They claimed that its not gambling because players always receive a specified number of items in each pack. This arguments falls apart when people realize that because its a loot box you never know what you will receive (its random) and some items might be worth a lot more in-game. Luckily as of January 31st ,2019 EA has stopped accepting real money for in-game currency. This is a very good thing and shows if people truly don't want something and enough attention is given to it in the form of public backlash change can occur. But how did this fiasco all start? Well we can see it in studies that released back in 2018 that revolved around this relationship of gambling and microtransactions.