Electronic Arts will allow FIFA Ultimate Team players to see inside their loot boxes before purchasing them, at least for a while. The new preview packs can be "opened" before purchase, allowing players to watch the opening animation and check the contents before purchasing the pack with their freely earned FUT coins or FIFA points purchased with real money.

It appeared that EA would be the last big company to move away from the loot box model; the FIFA Ultimate Team loot box is a large part of EA's revenue stream, as indicated by a series of leaked documents earlier this year.

New preview packs can be purchased or ignored once opened. When the timer runs out, the pack disappears and a new pack takes its place (the example in the EA post shows a timer of 20 hours and 35 minutes, so my guess is that the timer may be 24 hours during the preview of the pack). Opened "limited time" or "limited quantity" packs will also be unavailable if the limited time or limited quantity packs run out before the preview timer runs out.

Preview packs will be the only packs available for purchase for some time until the "Festival of FUTball" event ends on July 16, 2021. There will be no change to other types of packs, such as Objectives, SBCs, and Division Rivals Rewards packs, that will not be available from the FUT Store. For more information on the limited-time preview packs, please visit the FIFA Ultimate Team website.

There is little doubt that these packs are a test brought about by widespread concern, especially among European regulators, that loot boxes are gambling; EA faced fines of up to €10 million in the Netherlands last year for violating local gambling laws. It was. In Canada, a lawsuit alleges that EA operated an "unlicensed illegal gaming system." Finally, last year the British House of Lords recommended that loot boxes be classified as gambling and regulated. Addiction researchers have said in the past that there is a clear link between loot boxes and gambling addiction, calling it a "life or death" issue for problem gamblers.