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Electronic Arts (EA) is one of the leading developers of sports video games that have a massive global following. Some of their popular video games include Madden NFL, FIFA Series, Star Wars, The Battlefield Series and The Need for Speed.
EA has come under immense scrutiny in recent years as they use loot boxes in most of their popular video games. EA does not consider loot boxes to be a form of gambling but multiple gambling regulators across the world have pulled up EA as they believe that loot boxes are similar to gambling.
The company has been slapped with multiple class action lawsuits as plaintiffs claimed that when they purchased video games from EA, they had no idea that the loot boxes within the game would expose them to gambling and cause them to suffer financial loss.
One of those class action lawsuits against EA was over the use of its patented Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) technology. The DDA technology use artificial intelligence (AI) to adjust different levels of difficulty during a gaming session. The plaintiffs who filed the class action lawsuit alleged that EA was using DDA to push players towards loot boxes during their video game sessions.
Upper Echelon Gamers
EA denied these allegations and claimed that it would never use its patented technology to push players towards loot boxes. The developer decided to provide the plaintiffs with a chance to speak to their developers and engineers regarding the use and functionality of DDA. They were also given a lot of technical specifications and documentations that explained the technology in detail.
After reviewing all of the tech specifications and chatting with EA engineers, the plaintiffs were satisfied that EA was not using its patented technology to drive players towards loot boxes. As a result, they made the decision to drop the class action lawsuit.
EA Specifies Why DDA Technology Is Used
After establishing to the plaintiffs that they were not leveraging DDA technology to push players towards loot boxes, EA shed more light on how they used the technology. The developer claimed that they used their patented technology to ensure that players don’t get too frustrated by the challenges posed in the game or too bored by being stuck at one level.
While EA will be happy to see this class action lawsuit dropped, the company faces one class action lawsuit in Canada and another one in the United States.
