The class-action lawsuit against EA alleging the dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) technology was cheating players into buying loot boxes in FIFA, Madden and NHL has been dismissed by the plaintiffs.
Find out more below.
What is the case?
As explained on wccftech.com, “The suit alleges that when purchasing the loot boxes, users make the transaction with implicit expectations of beating EA's AI and other players in tournaments in FIFA, NFL and NHL.
“It states that the game developer uses DDA to make games progressively difficult, which in turn defeats the purpose of purchasing the player packs.
“DDA and Difficulty Adjusting Mechanisms (DAMs) affect how a user's team performs against an opponent by making virtual players underperform to keep the user engaged, the lawsuit alleges.
“This goes against what a player hopes to achieve by spending on the loot boxes, as even if they 'win' a highly-ranked player capable of superior performance, the aforementioned mechanisms ensure that this performance does not materialize every time a player is used believe the plaintiffs.”
EA Statement
EA released the following statement on their website.
“Ensuring play is fair is critical to all of us at EA, and we’ve tried to be as clear as possible that this commitment applies to us just as much as it does to our players. We’ve publicly said before that we do not use any scripting or “Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment” (DDA) or anything similar that would automatically adjust the difficulty of gameplay in FIFA, Madden and NHL Ultimate Team matches.
“Our clear statements were recently challenged in a lawsuit that alleged we did, in fact, use DDA in Ultimate Team modes. We’re pleased to share that the plaintiffs have now dismissed their case. We provided them with detailed technical information and access to speak with our engineers, all of which confirmed (again) that there is no DDA or scripting in Ultimate Team modes. This is the right result.
“While EA does own a patent for DDA technology, that technology never was in FIFA, Madden or NHL, and never will be. We would not use DDA technology to give players an advantage or disadvantage in online multiplayer modes in any of our games and we absolutely do not have it in FIFA, Madden or NHL.
“EA and the FIFA, Madden and NHL teams remain committed to fair play.”
Ongoing Cases
One lawsuit down, two to go.
EA are still facing lawsuits in the USA and Canada related to loot boxes in the Ultimate Team modes on their array of sports titles.