"Predatory" in what way exactly ? As far as I'm concerned it's a corporations job to convince consumers that there exists value in the services or goods that they provide. Loot boxes are not any different from the other methods in reaching the same ultimate goal of a corporation selling to it's customers. If the customers don't like it that doesn't mean the corporation has to bend over and provide their customers free content. Quite a few of the EU's social democrat influenced laws are indeed backwards towards a few vital industries. EU is not one bit competitive in the semiconductor industry like we see with tiny East Asian countries such as South Korea or Taiwan due to it's ultra pro-union labour laws and price controls on drugs are not sustainable for bio-pharmaceutical industry development when Eroom's law is in place. There are only 2 capitally intensive industries left relevant to world trade that Europe is actually competitive in such as passenger airline technology (Airbus) and various biopharmaceutical companies ... 

Much less of a grip how ? Corporate interests will always be baked in a republic so long as humans keep participating in massive industries. South Korea and Samsung are the most extreme example of both being in political lockstep with each other since that one conglomerate massively accounts for the nation's economy so it's pretty much impossible for any European country with large companies to not somehow distort it's political system ... 

Actually, Ubisoft does have loot boxes (it uses real life currency too) in Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Rainbow Six: Siege ... 

If EA can't have the so called FIFA "Ultimate Team" (loot boxes) since the EU banned them then there's not much reason to pay a pretty penny anymore for the FIFA license, right ? (If it becomes lawfully undesirable to profit then it becomes undesirable to acquire the said license as well without a price cut) 

EU banning loot boxes altogether is counterproductive for EA since it accounts for 60% of it's net profits like you said so losing that isn't an option but what other realistic options are there when they're forced to opt out regardless ? 

When you're clearly making an absolute mint of a billion dollars from pure MT's alone, of course you're going to want to fight tooth and nail to secure that goldmine and allow yourself to siphon further from it in the future. EA are so very greedy and they have their 1b dollar franchise via MT's, so they naturally want to secure it, as all their other franchises are either dead, malformed and not making anywhere close to what Fifa makes or costing more to design (and then kill shortly afterwards).

I honestly hope this crushes EA, but it won't. I'd like to see them suffer for all the PC ip's they've killed over the years, as well as beloved studios.

Don't kid yourself mate a large chunk of EA's profits came from FIFA alone if you think pulling out of EU is an option you're mistaken because guess what EA are a business and still need to operate regardless of any ruling, they're not going to give up 80% of FIFA's sales and potentially the license because someone else will fill the void.

What dream are you talking about? Are you high or something because I've not said anything of the sort or are you looking to be dismantled on a personal level because I can do that if you wish. You're talking as if gaming companies mean something to nations they don't gaming is a niche market compared to many industries around and so many large publishers have gone under and have had no impact on the countries they were based in, you're spouting a fantasy here were these publishers are bigger than what they really are.

Nintendo could probably abandon Europe and be fine, but E.A.....man oh man E.A could not afford to with how much money FIFA gets them there. If they had to abandon Europe their entire business model would basically have to be remade from the ground up, and it would probably be a downgrade from their current one, somehow.

Fifa stands at over 5 Billion income for this year alone (source here, but you'd need to pay to see it). Considering most sales of Fifa having been done last year already, most of that sum must be lootboxes. Even just counting 24M times 60$ would not be enough to cover more than a quarter of the income Fifa generated for EA this year alone

Really ? "(60% just from Fifa Ultimate team iirc)" 

It didn't sound like how he implicated it in his wording at all ... 

You do realize that the majority of the money that EA makes on their FIFA licenses are to be repaid in debt when the bought the license, right ? Rest assured that EA's margins are thin and that the FIFA body isn't getting screwed out of the deal in the process since they hold all the keys. FIFA may sell a lot of copies but it's no good to EA if the FIFA body just keeps taking most of it and EA doesn't seem all that thrilled about their Star Wars license from Disney ... 

And a large part of EA's costs are maintaining the FIFA license alone since FIFA doesn't own the problem of how their going to make the games profitable so if EA wants a cut from the property that's their problem ... 

LOL, "Belgium is the main HQ for the EU and are already passing the proposal to the rest of EU so unless EA want to lose out on sales from a whole region that isn't really an option" ...

The revisionism is strong in you since you're trying so hard to hide your distaste of loot boxes as a supposed consensus. Acting as the strong man won't get you out this time since your denial only translates to cognitive dissonance ... (anyone can see that you have a bias against loot boxes and is salivating for an intercontinental wide ban on them)

Again, EU has jack shit for leverage since they don't have a consensus among their members and with the UK leaving it makes them less of a threat to EA than they are now ... 

You're trying hard to fabricate an argument that was never even said do you know who governs the EU? It's the bureaucrats in Brussels they have the power to push for laws among EU members and even override local laws with in their members this has always been the controversy of the EU because those against it cite that they have power over people who never elected them. How this fact pertains to some fabricated argument you've made up in your head is down to you but looking at your posts here it's not hard to realise how you'd make things up to argue. I don't have to act I'll just do much like I've done to a number of commandos before which have included yourself, it's even more hilarious is that the quote you brought up doesn't even support your accusation in any form especially when we look at your original post, it all highlights a massive reach on your behalf.

EU has plenty of leverage considering it's the biggest region in size and supplies a huge amount of sales for companies why do you think EA are fighting to begin with they gave up on loot boxes in Starwars but are fighting tooth and nail for it in FIFA, the money is significant all their other titles don't come close to the 24m FIFA moves yearly and most of that is in Europe, the UK is not going to make up for losing sales in the rest of the EU that's broken logic. It's funny as EA's actions contradict your argument because if EU didn't matter like you claim they would have pulled out long ago.

Look what I posted before. it's 5 times bigger now and the main source of income of EA. They are at a point with Fifa that could give all their other games away for free and still make a hefty profit simply through UT. Fifa's revenue generation January through August lies at 5.15 Billion Dollar, with at least 4 Billion out of them must have been through UT.

The problem with UT is that they're not only selling power (aka Pay to Win), but gambling for it and getting away with it until now. You literally need hundreds of Packs to get at least a halfway decent team, and since the mode is competitive you either shut up and spend your money or leave out the meat of the game. That's Fifa nowadays, sadly.

Really, I wish some Indie devs would have the guts to make some sport sims, too, even without the licenses. Just add an extensive editor and Mod support so one can add the players, stadiums and all other infos yourself.

Here's another source, dutch this time: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20180909_03725401

It states that loot boxes make up 67% of EA's revenue, or 3 billion Euros (about 3.6 Billion Dollar). Your 800M figure is certainly either wrong under those circumstances or way outdated. So my 5.15B that I stated before could have been the whole revenue, but considering that over two third are from Lootboxes, it's still way over 800M

@bold: That's quite probably because you can't spend money. These types of games are made excessively grindy just because it sells ways around the grind like lootboxes, premium currencies and the like. However, if you can't bring the things to get around the massive grind, better remove it as well to not alienate everybody. Since EA loves to region Lock and Region Code, I'm pretty sure they did just that by increasing probabilities of getting better players.

I checked to find better souces because it seemed a bit muddy for me too. So I came across their Quarterly report. Here are the slides: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4190939-electronic-arts-inc-2019-q1-results-earnings-call-slides and here's the full transcript, happy reading :https://seekingalpha.com/article/4190960-electronic-arts-ea-q1-2019-results-earnings-call-transcript

The 5.15B$ that I said before turn out to be total revenue last Financial Year, and EA is expecting 5.6B$ for this FY. So no, not just Fifa here.

3/4 of those 5.6B are expected to be digital goods, while last FY it was just two third (the 67% of the Nieuwsblad article).

The 3 Billion stated in that article seem to be EAs digital good sales on PC and consoles and mobile (3.550 Billion combined, out of which only 656 Million are from mobile games, so basically 3 Billion $ for PC and Consoles).

Out of those 3.55 Billions, only 668M are from game downloads, while a whooping 2.226B are from Live services (Loot boxes, DLC and Microtransactions)

Out of all their Live services, Fifa's Ultimate Team mode should be by far and large the biggest one. Considering the games in that list in the report, I could easily see Fifa taking up about 60% of those 2.226B, meaning 1.4-1.5B$. Much less than the numbers quoted before, but also quite a bit more than the 800M you posted. However EAs digital sales are exploding since FY 2016 (April 2015-March 2016), as they had 2.4B in digital sales back then and only 2 years later over 1 Billion more while physical sales contracted by less than 300M. Considering that both mobile games and digital game sales are pretty low, the only reason can be that their live services ballooned. Madden and especially UFC are way smaller than Fifa (probably around 5M and 2M including digital for both compared to the 24M of Fifa), SWTOR is slowly dying for years now, Sims 4 had very bad reviews and sales, SW BAttlefront II their lootboxes deactivated, Battlefield One Season Pass is just a season pass (thus not outselling the base game) and EA Access only started then. That basically just leaves Fifa  for the brunt of those sales. In fact, the transcript gives us just that: 

Blake J. Jorgensen - Electronic Arts, Inc.

Yeah. We – thanks, Brian, yeah, thank you. We typically don't break out Ultimate Team on a quarterly basis, but you should assume that Ultimate Team is over 50% of the live services component in any one quarter and certainly in the quarter that we just closed out..

So more than 1.1 Billion $ confirmed for FUT

Oh, and for those who think that those things are necessary for Publishers to stay alive because 60$ games wouldn't be enough to cover their expenses, think again: EA has a gross Profit margin of a whooping 75%. Not sure if even Apple has such a high profit margin.

Btw, from the transcript I learned that there's a Fifa mobile, so it even takes a part of that mobile pie, too.

Edit: All these news in quick succession are bad for EAs bottom line, especially their stocks. Their shares were at almost 150$ in late July but have dropped to 110$ one month later. And even investors think that's just the tip of the iceberg: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4205240-electronic-arts-bear-news-cycle-just-beginning