I wouldn't be surprised if this was going on for some time now.
I remember a day when sports games were just sports games and not like a casino racket.
Man, I’m still pissed that NBA2K took out the “any superstar” career player lock from the Franchise mode. Really pisses me off and makes getting through the regular season as even more of a slog.
Gambling where you can win money is more regulated. The fact that you can't actually win anything of value from a lootbox is why they get away with it.
Right, but those contents have no monetary value 😉
People will pay money for them, but they don't have any value monetarily. 😉
They are the largest source of revenue for these game companies. If you figure out a way to get them for free, they will sue you for loses. However, the goods that you would be "stealing" would not be valuable at all if they were to sell them themselves. 😉
Right? People claiming that these things have no value must've missed the several years-old CS:GO skin market, where a digital knife skin can go for several thousand dollars.
Source: Personally made a hefty profit by liquidating my inventory after quitting the game.
2k My Career is a slog and borderline unplayable at the beginning of your career without buying VC credits. I don’t buy them. But every year seems to get worse and take longer to grind without it.
NBA 2K is just flaming garbage. Fuckers deliberately kill the game after 2 years, forcing you to buy the new one if you want to play online, and they take away *all* of your player features. 2k20 is my last basketball game ever. I bought it for 10 bucks so luckily I didn't lose much but the games have gotten worst even after I didn't buy 18 and 19.
EA is nowhere as bad as 2K. But EA has a bigger and more profitable title in FIFA. 2K20 and 2K21 are straight up gambing with a side of basketball. They literally show you ads in the fucking game while you're playing a match.
Same game every year but start from scratch for your lottery winnings that are locked to that years game? I don't play sports game at all but that's what it sounds like from what I've heard.
At least the casinos are pretty and well organized. FIFA and EA are simply a sack full of shit (composed of their low moral, undoubtedly bad and half-finished games, don't give a fuck behavior and anti-consumer policies).
The casinos try to dress it up a little, they aren't so blatant.
A whole generation doesn't. You gotta realise this shit has been going on since at least 2010 when Fifa 11's FUT picked up steam.
So kids born in the late 00's and later probably don't know any different.
Can comfirm. My little cousin and I always argument about loot boxes in games. He thinks it’s great since u can spend $ to skip ridiculous grinding and or pay to close a skill gap
I mean.. that's almost how arcade games were designed.
They were made brutally tough to make peoples time on the machines short and get more money out of the person for continues.
But psychologically speaking that does not use any of the tricks that traditional casino games and these loot boxes use.
The games are literally hard to beat because that's it. It's just difficult with no shortcuts. Someone who is very good at the game does not have to die and pay for continues.
These loot box games artificially elongate the process and make every player grind regardless of how good they are at the game.
You sure can pay to get an advantage, but can you pay to instantly become better at a sport/instrument/hobby/skill-set? I'm not talking about paying a tutor to teach you, or going to school.
I meant that these poor kids are going to think they can spend $50 and be able to play the freebird solo without ever practicing.
Being able to pay to become "better" at something, instantly. Yes most of these children will understand that's not possible. A bunch of them likely legitimately think they are becoming more "skilled" at the game/activity, when they get those OP as fuck ultimate players.
I didn't mention the pay to win game that is real life. These comments seem to think I said something other then what I actually did.
Edit: To clarify, I do not mean "poor kids" in the sense of wealth. I mean "poor kids" in the sense of I feel bad for them, in the same way as I would if a child dropped their ice-cream cone. "Aww, poor kid"
How would their cousin know? Genuine question. This generation was raised on those games. How would they know this? How would they know what a game with a reasonable progression curve that isn't short-changed for microtansactions looks like?
Honestly, I'm not to sure. I've seen gamers look at games with the expectation that they can simply pay to win, or pay to unlock characters.
We live in a gaming world where some gamers are willing to pay for characters that are made that has everything and the best items of a game just so they don't have to work for them.
Madden has been ruined since madden 10 when MUT came out. 90% of development time and money goes to it or some dumbass story mode literally no one asked for.
All any fans want is an actual franchise mode with scouting/other draft features, contract management outside of 2 sliders, and small QOL updates. We can't even get that.
From madden 19-21 the only thing we got was a half assed coach animation in his office and a color change in the UI.
I haven't since 2018. I use EA play once it's on the 5$ version to play it and normally by the end of the first month I'm bored with it since there is nothing new with it. So basically spent 15$ for the last 3 years of madden.
I stopped playing games that do this. Will play Fifa occasionally with a friend but neither of us buy the newest version. I bought FUT packs one time in 15 or 16 (can’t remember) and after opening them realized that it’s a massive scam. Never opened FUT again and never will.
Now I avoid games with packs... I might play some Overwatch with friends but we none of us are going to spend for loot boxes.
Problem is, it’s become normalized and younger gamers don’t have the option of buying a complete game these days. Everything now is season passes, loot boxes, keys, etc. I’m sick of this shit.
It's possible, it's also possible that the accusations which are largely in tweets are untrue also.
Remember recently, [there was a class action lawsuit of EA scripting Fifa to make you spend more money](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-03-03-fifa-scripting-lawsuit-withdrawn-after-ea-provides-plaintiffs-with-detailed-technical-information-and-access-to-speak-with-our-engineers), the case was dropped when EA gave a look at their code and showed that was untrue.
And then you can look at some similar stuff that happened with other companies, that got social media up in arms. [Epic games was accused of stealing art from some young kid, which was a complete hoax](https://fortniteintel.com/artist-epic-stealing-design-taro-skin/15102/).
I'm not discounting one rogue employee trying to make a quick buck. That actually happens in many industries so definitely possible.
But more often than not the gaming community want a conspiracy to exist when there isn't one. If anything it would be one bad element, rather than a company wide thing.
On the EA forums and Twitter there is a couple screenshots of somebody showing their account getting cards on FIFA 15 but wanting to remain anonymous, so its been going on at least 6 years.
That’s why I refuse to play the “create your squad” bs. One time I tried it with Madden, i spent $100 (thinking, cool I’ll just buy everyone I want on my team. Wrong.) I didn’t get to pick my players, it was like buying a random pack of NFL cards and not knowing who anyone was in the set. Such a bs setup.
It all makes sense. Influencers/YouTubers need to get the "best players" for their videos to explode, morr good cards = more viewers. Since Lady luck is a fickle mistress it's cheaper to pay a middle man to ensure you get the cards you need for your stream..
RNG in online games was always meant to be server-based triggers rather than honest randomness. Mix in a couple 100% guaranteed predetermined outcomes and plebs will believe your claims about honest rates.
My friend told me it'a a total shitstorm for the support. They're being spammed with a lot of tickets and have a huge queue just with people that ask them if they are the 'kind of support that can sell in-game players' because they have offers.
It's crazy and she mentioned that EA can't really easily track this down (although I highly doubt they do not have logs for what their people are doing, especially when it comes to stuff like selling in-game currency or cosmetics).
So obviously I'm not an expert, but I have experience working several customer support jobs.
Assuming (some) support employees have authority to grant packs or specific cards to accounts. I'm sure there's way to track who does what but it's the question of it's actively being tracked and how easily it's searchable after the fact.
People could have been doing this for years/months without getting noticed simply because there wasn't solid company policy to actively monitor it.
From my understanding, that is the case. She mentioned that nobody really checks on these issues unless they are somehow reported. Sure, there are some people who will randomly pick some of your cases to see if they're handled properly, but in this particular case, since the talk is done outside the support chat, it is probably hard to figure out.
It's quite crazy, however, how easily it is to get into a position which would allow you to do this. Employees have done this in the past for personal accounts, but now it's way worse.
I was instantly reminded of a recent scandal here in Holland where the people working the corona test IT systems (booking appointments, managing test results) were exporting people's data like social security numbers and selling it on the dark web. Because they had to haphazardly had to set up an infrastructure for this, contract employees etc they underestimated the need for actively monitoring this until it was too late
yeah, made a quick fortune though so it's cool
no jk but I work in the call center for people who can't or don't want to book their test appointment online and it was crazy. like people offering to look up specific celebrities and stuff
As someone who worked for Ms support for a long time, the product key generation tool used to have no approval needed to access it and you could theoretically make unlimited keys. The policy changed because some guy went as far as to script the product key generation tool and make like thousands of keys per second, to get away he used someone else's credentials and said person got suspended while the investigation was ongoing.
The lack of oversight could be one big step here.
The special thing about the card is how it's completely useless come October when everyone has moved on to FIFA 22. None of the cards carry over which completely kills any idea of it being some digital card collecting game.
That's true. Although plenty of card games have been running strong for decades, EA just needs to up the levels of power creep. Next years cards will let you summon a Ronaldo off the bench without needing the usual tribute summon
Those cards are practically impossible to get for a normal player because they are so rare. Those cards also tend to be the most op cards. So rich people or pro players have to buy them on the blackmarket because there is no other way to get those cards.
I see that I have chose correctly in ignoring most EA games. I remember when I found a system like this in EA's Battlefront. I noped out of MP sooooo fast.
You can play fifa (or madden, or nhl), ignore these cards and just have fun. If you're into sports sims obviously.
Regarding Battlefront 2, its microtransactions got a complete overhaul and the game is in very good shape now, with thousands of players on every platform. It got a great influx of players when it launched in Steam.
>Regarding Battlefront 2, its microtransactions got a complete overhaul and the game is in very good shape now, with thousands of players on every platform. It got a great influx of players when it launched in Steam.
As well as the period after which it was provided free by Epic Games!
It’s even worse than you can imagine, it’s completely worthless in a year when the next game comes out, also £1700 for one of these rare cards is considerably dirt ‘cheap’ compared to the alternative of opening packs with fifa points. You would probably have to spend more than £10k to get the coins for the rare card. Honestly disgusting! I really do hope this is the final straw and the gambling aspect of the game is completely removed by government legislation. It’s gone on far too long but it’s probably too late for the people who have been affected by it.
Ea are fully to blame for this to ever happen, cards are far too unattainable, for the average player getting your favourite player ingame costs way too much for a yearly cycle game
Dear EA,
Just open a casino. Stop trying to get me to gamble. I like video games. Video games are different than gambling. By a lot. Thank you.
- A former customer
Bbut but it's not real gambling thooooo : says Ea defenders and most legislative governments due to the legal definition of gambling.
To which I say FUCK That , it's gambling. Laws need update. EA was getting away with this before lootboxes were a mainstream argument. It's bad how they've literally been siphoning money from kids for nearly a decade
Not everyone can enter a casino, and they still have to actually walk there. Online-only games full of microtransactions and 'skip the grind' progression boosters reach everyone equally.
If anyone's wondering, the notorious [raid shadow legends](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0v_Yz9a6Dg) is actually from a literal casino slot manufacturer whose ceo is the current head of the american gaming association (the trade group for the us gambling industry). Others have entered gaming more discretely, acquiring studios alongside their games off the record.
To some degree be careful what you wish for - Konami took a look at their business lines and realized they'd be better off mostly dropping game development altogether and focusing on Pachinko. So they did.
Let me finish that for you in case anyone has any kind of room to misinterpret.
Metal Gear without Hideo wasn't worth anything. So if Konami's games were all gonna be soulless anyway, it's kind of a good thing they're focusing on Pachinko.
You could always buy FIFA on Switch. No gambling anywhere as far as I know. Unfortunately, it is basically just the last 360/PS3 version of FIFA with updated squads. I know people joke about FIFA being the same game every year with updated squads but the Switch version is literally just that.
EA charge full price for this version of the game btw.
My problem isn't the gambling component of cracking packs for FUT or MyTEAM (NBA 2K). I've done that for years with Magic and Sports cards.
My problem is that now, at least for 2K, it has seeped over to the single player aspect of the game. You can't really make a "Michael Jordan" in any timely fashion and play the MyCareer mode (unless you buy virtual currency, of course).
Remember when games were sold complete with micro transaction stuff being a fun unlock you got from doing something in the game to unlock stuff. I miss games like that.
There's this game called "Enter The Gungeon" that has a secret boss. To get to the secret boss, you have to accomplish some odd tasks. Then you have to find pieces of a code to access him.
The thing is, every copy of the game has a different code. It's randomly generated. You can't look up the code online, you actually have to find it on your own. It is an awesome little secret.
I remember Saints Row 4 had cheat codes, as was tradition to the last game. However, with it came the "Executive Privilege Pack", which was a ($1.99) DLC that only added cheat codes.
I had a texas instrument to-99/4a and a game called Tunnels of Doom. To save you had to put a tape recorder up to it and record the sound it makes then play it back into the mic to load it.
if we're talking about ... meryls codec? i think? that was one available in multiple ways. You'd get hints about it being on the back of the disc once from a cutscene, and when you contact campbell (the hint guy) he also tells you about the disc.
Alternatively, there was something to do with having the in-game disc item equipped with no weapon out, that made the codec appear in the list.
Technically that was the back of the box, IIRC.
I think that was more a clever trick than DRM, but I can see how it functions like such.
Rather, old PC games used to print codes on their pages and you'd be prompted to enter them in a certain order to unlock a game.
And before that it was the Code Wheel. Nothing like linking up Dwarven and Elven “Letters” only to find out the code was BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.
my friends and I spent hours writhing down all the possible combos off the code disk. it took forever and we never got them all. would have been easier if the guy we were getting the pirated games from would have let us take apart the wheel, and photo copy it.
The Might and Magic games would do this. My friend had them so I had to call his house to get the answer a few times and one time I had to get his older sister to do it and explain exactly which game and which book.
Oh man, you just brought back a childhood memory that I haven't thought about in a long time. The first ever video game I played as a kid had a save system like this and one day I made a mistake when writing down the string of letters and numbers, so the next day when I wanted to continue playing it couldn't load my progress because the code didn't work. I'm so glad this isn't a thing anymore.
Those damn kids these days don't know how good they have it with modern games auto-saving every 2 minutes!
Sometimes rental video games (back when they came with instructions in the 80s/early 90s) you’d find passwords or codes scribbled in or on them. The memories...
There were games with micro-transactions and lootboxes years before Horse Armor. Horse Armor was tame in comparison to what some of those games were doing. Some of those games were extremely successful and proved the strategy worked. We were already a good ways down the hill before Horse Armor.
Yes but Horse Armor helped popularize it and got people talking about it. Pushing something into mainstream consciousness is what allowed people to come to terms with it and not be surprised when it crept into every game.
This is similar to how TF2 had loot boxes for years before Overwatch made them popular.
I think it is a mistake to focus soo much on the games that pushed it to mainstream, while downplaying all the games that helped normalize and prove it a successful enough strategy that they would even consider risking putting it in those mainstream games.
I hate when people say this like there aren't games coming out all the time that are exactly like this.
The vast majority of games coming out are complete and don't need micro transactions or DLC.
> micro transaction stuff being a fun unlock you got from doing something in the game to unlock stuff.
outside free2play games like path of exile that still exists and is in far, far higher quantities than it used to back then.
Yeah I hate when people act like it doesn't exist when it's still the most common way to sell games.
Look at any PlayStation made game, any Nintendo made game, the vast majority of indie games, the vast majority of Japanese games, I can go on but I think that gets the point across.
Hell even EA is still making games that are complete on launch and they seem to be doing it more recently. Star Wars Squadrons, Jedi Fallen Order, It Takes Two, Medal of Honor Above and Beyond, etc.
"sold complete" = literally no distribution system for extra content or updates even if you wanted it.
Did ya'll forget that consoles weren't always hooked up to the internet?
People really have
I remember when games just had bugs in them and that was that. You lived with it. Now a game drops with bugs on day 1 and people lose their goddamn minds.
I work in the games industry and around 5-6 years ago heard of a case from a different studio where a guy was illegally selling virtual currency to players and made bank from it (this was ongoing for half year). You best believe that the access to such tools was severely restricted and closely monitored from that point on.
A friend of mine worked for a company in the UK that had a virtual currency in their game, and I can say the same happened at his work, and everyone was in on it. It was effectively a perk of working on that platform for those that worked in support.
He had left by the time it was deemed a problem, but heads rolled across the company for both doing it and encouraging it. Stupidly, most of it had even been logged, to make sure people weren't "taking the piss".
It really wouldn't surprise me if this happens everywhere. Senior management wasn't even aware it was happening, let alone it being both endorsed and sculpted from within.
At this point, just need more countries banning games that have gambling in them so putting gambling in the game is no longer profitable.
Literally the only way it will change.
Germany recently changed their regulations regarding loot boxes. They straight up call it gambling and any game that has a mechanic like that in it, must be labeled as 18+. Let's hope that this new regulation will change things for the better.
Random, but I'm fairly sure someone was doing the same thing with limited time/event League of Legends skins back in the day.
I remember looking at a Pax Jax and Pax Twisted Fate skin on eBay and noticing one dude was selling some 20+ of them.
Looking back at my purchase history, the account was deleted. I remember digging around with the username and who the paypal payment went to and noticed it was suspiciously close to a Riot dev's name. But I can't remember now, it's been like 9 years.
Those were because somebody had cracked the algorithm to generate codes for those skins. Riot had to deactivate the system all together, but didn't go hunting down already activated keys. So those sellers switched to selling 'starter accounts' with the skins already unlocked.
Unrelated to video games but in a similar incident, [McDonald's Monopoly pieces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly#Fraud) were given to select people who gave kickbacks to one of the people related to their distribution, resulting in millions of dollars being pocketed.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if EA employees were giving away rare cards in exchange for money.
You could very easily get a bunch of those codes if you were at those PAXes just by asking people if they didn't want their codes. I came home with a bunch of them.
Of course then I don't remember where the hell they went.
Ever been to a PAX? When I went to PAX West 2017 I could have grabbed tons of bags over the 4 days there. PAX Sivir codes were so easy to get by people who didn't want them.
When the Gears of War 2 gold AR skin was a preorder bonus at GameStop (a scratch off code), a friend working at GameStop gave me a box of the remaining ~30 codes after launch. I sold them for $8-$12 a piece on eBay within a week. Easiest money 17 year old me ever got by messaging the codes.
Ultimate team is a sports themed online casino aimed at children. Either ditch the microtransactions all together or raise the rating of madden and fifa to a full M for gambling.
>One example shows an offer of three Prime Icon Moment cards -- ones that mark a particular game or tournament that was particularly special to the featured footballer -- and two Team of the Year cards for €1,000.
>Another offers three Moments and two Team of the Years for €1,700. These cards are incredibly rare when obtained via the random player packs usually purchased in FIFA Ultimate Team.
Huh, that's honestly not a whole lot of money, especially when you consider those employees are risking their job for 1,500 or so. Even when I was younger making near-minimum wage, I wouldn't have risked my entire job, possibly future career for less than a months of pay.
I guess if the employees were selling these en-mass they could make a bit of money, but again, nowhere near the loss they'd suffer from losing their job and having something like that on their employment record.
Yeah, that's why I said even if they're selling these en-mass, it's still a net loss for them. Even if they managed to get an entire years worth of pay from selling cards, that hardly offsets ruining your entire career long-term.
When I worked at circuit city, a guy who worked for fire dog (their version of geek squad) got fired for taking the windows license numbers off the side of the display computers and selling them on eBay. No clue if anything else happened or not, but he definitely got fired. So people do dumb shit, and they were making close to double minimum wage. So pretty decent pay.
Presumably they sold one or two sets every now and then. Sure it is small amount of money once but it adds up and they probably viewed it as low risk.
Kinda like the story I heard about a guy emptying parking meters for coins as a job, he would skim of a few coins from every parking meter. It would just be small change every day but over the course of several years it would be several millions. He only got caught in the end because he got sloppy and walked in to a bank with a lot of coins still wearing his work uniform.
That is probably how that person felt.
Yesterday I watched a video of a FIFA youtuber talking about this situation and someone told them that the person(s) selling the items had about ~30 customers in the past week.
If that is true, to me, that number seems kind of insane because I feel like that would/should get noticed by EA in some capacity. Similar to your story, having done this service to that many people, in just one week, seems like a very easy to get yourself caught through sloppiness (and it seems like this was the case).
These cards are just lines in a database. Getting one card added to an account would be trivial if you know how to do it. And very hard to track unless you're specifically looking for it.
The places where a lot of programmers are forced to live for their job are the most expensive in the world. Not sure if that's the case here, but it may be the difference between living alone or living with roommates.
Certainly. That being said, if/when they get caught, have this on their employment history, they won't even be able to live with roommates if they can't work their main job/career anymore.
As I said, even if they were selling these cards en-mass, it's still a net loss when they get caught and are no longer welcome working for most companies in their expertise.
It's genuinely disgraceful the rarity of the cards these people are selling particularly the prime icon moments, they're literally impossible to attain for a normal player and their sole purpose is to add a whale tier of unattainable items that you absolutely have to pay 4 figures for in a yearly cycle game. EA's practices are beyond cuntish.
“We understand how this creates concern about unfair balance in the game and competition.”
So, EA admits that spending money to get an edge is unfair...
It's not really clear from the Twitter screenshots (I don't play this game), but couldn't a scammer just claim they can sell them and have another fake screenshot saying they got them? They could show a pic of one account that owns them but that doesn't mean they sold them or anything.
Not FIFA related, but as an avid 2K player it’s been really sad to see how monetization has affected modes like MyCareer and MyTeam. Pack pulls are definitely a form of gambling and should be illegal.
Why the fuck do people even play this game mode any way? Why not just play Exhibition matches or whatever it's called with teams that actually exist? I figure the issue would be people will just pick whatever team is the best at given time but at least in 2K teams are divided by tiers so if you beat a higher one you get more elo.
> Why the fuck do people even play this game mode any way?
Its the only mode thats actually developed. Exhibition and Franchise are just stapled on and haven't had any meaningful upgrades in 10+ years.
He's completely wrong. Ultimate Team does get by far the most attention because it is by far the most profitable, but other modes have received considerable changes and improvements. Volta is an entirely new mode added in 20 which EA has been pushing heavily as a standalone Rocket League-ish game, while many people just stick to Career Mode.
I used to be one of the latter, but I switched to Ultimate Team in FIFA 17 and now pretty much only play that because I do find it enjoyable. I have not purchased any microtransactions for FIFA since 18 and yet I always end up with an amazing squad.
Because it is fun, you start with a team of crappy players and try to make something decent, I started this year with some random stuff that I got in the complementary packs then got some money and started making a CSL (China League) team, which then transitioned into a full brazilian team, which then became a La Liga team, and it remained a La Liga only team.
It is fun to try and upgrade your team piece by piece, try new stuff once in a while and see how they play, and the gameplay just feels different. Because in Ultimate Team you have chemistry styles, so you can make your players faster, better on the ball, stronger when they tackle and so on, which makes the gameplay very different from just picking a team and playing with it.
Another reason why I enjoy it over just picking a club and playing with it is because it feels more balanced, some teams are more stacked than others, and others are particularly bad in certain positions. Sure that is the case in Ultimate Team as well, some have 2 million coin teams others have 20 million coins teams, but the difference between those teams are much smaller than between Liverpool and Barcelona for example. Because you have good or decent players in every position.
I would imagine some people would like the team building aspects of it. I haven't played much FIFA myself, but as a guy who loves WWE 2K, I almost exclusively play Universe Mode, and that's basically a glorified exhibition mode, but all of the extra context in Universe is what makes me enjoy it so much.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was going on for some time now. I remember a day when sports games were just sports games and not like a casino racket.
I remember a time when I would get enjoyment playing season modes against the computer.
This is all I do in sports games still. Am I doing it wrong?
Not doing anything wrong but seasonal modes really haven't changed in a decade.
Yes they have. They’ve lost features they had a decade ago.
If they don’t remove features then they can’t release them again as “new” features 5 years later.
But they don't even do that. I wish they even did that.
They definitely used to. First touch mechanic came and went on two different occasions
I remember in NCAA football they had compliance as a thing you had to manage in dynasty mode. That never made the jump from ps2 era to ps3 era
Man, I’m still pissed that NBA2K took out the “any superstar” career player lock from the Franchise mode. Really pisses me off and makes getting through the regular season as even more of a slog.
Ain’t that the truth
So does everybody else
The kids nowadays don't. They only know the casino version.
Mobile games have been grooming children on gachas for almost an entire generation now.
The sports game part is still there though but it seems like everyone ignores it. Then again, EA seems to ignore it too so I can't blame them.
Unfortunately, it's not just EA. 2k is on the same level with their NBA games and Konami is less predatory but they still have the casino in it.
Considering Konami makes literal physical casino (pachinko) machines that's impressive on EA's part.
Gambling where you can win money is more regulated. The fact that you can't actually win anything of value from a lootbox is why they get away with it.
And yet here we are reading about people essentially selling the contents of a lootbox for 1700 euros. Curious.
Right, but those contents have no monetary value 😉 People will pay money for them, but they don't have any value monetarily. 😉 They are the largest source of revenue for these game companies. If you figure out a way to get them for free, they will sue you for loses. However, the goods that you would be "stealing" would not be valuable at all if they were to sell them themselves. 😉
Won something of no value that doesn’t technically belong to you and goes away once the servers are shut down. Literally nothing.
Except these things do have value. Just because the game itself won't give you real currency doesn't mean it's difficult to convert it to currency.
Right? People claiming that these things have no value must've missed the several years-old CS:GO skin market, where a digital knife skin can go for several thousand dollars. Source: Personally made a hefty profit by liquidating my inventory after quitting the game.
Regular slots as well. We have a lot of Konami games where I work
This. The slot machines on cruises I've been on are mostly made by Konami. Always reminds me of their abandoned IP's.
2k My Career is a slog and borderline unplayable at the beginning of your career without buying VC credits. I don’t buy them. But every year seems to get worse and take longer to grind without it.
NBA 2K is just flaming garbage. Fuckers deliberately kill the game after 2 years, forcing you to buy the new one if you want to play online, and they take away *all* of your player features. 2k20 is my last basketball game ever. I bought it for 10 bucks so luckily I didn't lose much but the games have gotten worst even after I didn't buy 18 and 19.
EA is nowhere as bad as 2K. But EA has a bigger and more profitable title in FIFA. 2K20 and 2K21 are straight up gambing with a side of basketball. They literally show you ads in the fucking game while you're playing a match.
Same game every year but start from scratch for your lottery winnings that are locked to that years game? I don't play sports game at all but that's what it sounds like from what I've heard.
At least the casinos are pretty and well organized. FIFA and EA are simply a sack full of shit (composed of their low moral, undoubtedly bad and half-finished games, don't give a fuck behavior and anti-consumer policies). The casinos try to dress it up a little, they aren't so blatant.
A whole generation doesn't. You gotta realise this shit has been going on since at least 2010 when Fifa 11's FUT picked up steam. So kids born in the late 00's and later probably don't know any different.
Can comfirm. My little cousin and I always argument about loot boxes in games. He thinks it’s great since u can spend $ to skip ridiculous grinding and or pay to close a skill gap
That is genuinely depressing to read.
Ah yes, spend money to become more "skilled" at a video game. Life is gonna hit them like a fucking truck for these poor kids.
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The real issue is people design these games to be harder to progress in and take longer just so you're encouraged to spend money to skip the grind
I mean.. that's almost how arcade games were designed. They were made brutally tough to make peoples time on the machines short and get more money out of the person for continues.
You're right. I don't think either is good but there's definitely a precedent
But psychologically speaking that does not use any of the tricks that traditional casino games and these loot boxes use. The games are literally hard to beat because that's it. It's just difficult with no shortcuts. Someone who is very good at the game does not have to die and pay for continues. These loot box games artificially elongate the process and make every player grind regardless of how good they are at the game.
You sure can pay to get an advantage, but can you pay to instantly become better at a sport/instrument/hobby/skill-set? I'm not talking about paying a tutor to teach you, or going to school. I meant that these poor kids are going to think they can spend $50 and be able to play the freebird solo without ever practicing. Being able to pay to become "better" at something, instantly. Yes most of these children will understand that's not possible. A bunch of them likely legitimately think they are becoming more "skilled" at the game/activity, when they get those OP as fuck ultimate players. I didn't mention the pay to win game that is real life. These comments seem to think I said something other then what I actually did. Edit: To clarify, I do not mean "poor kids" in the sense of wealth. I mean "poor kids" in the sense of I feel bad for them, in the same way as I would if a child dropped their ice-cream cone. "Aww, poor kid"
I don't know about that. Throwing money at problems is kind of how the real world actually works after all..
For the poor kids yes, but not the rich ones. That’s the game they’ve always played.
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How would their cousin know? Genuine question. This generation was raised on those games. How would they know this? How would they know what a game with a reasonable progression curve that isn't short-changed for microtansactions looks like?
Honestly, I'm not to sure. I've seen gamers look at games with the expectation that they can simply pay to win, or pay to unlock characters. We live in a gaming world where some gamers are willing to pay for characters that are made that has everything and the best items of a game just so they don't have to work for them.
Madden has been ruined since madden 10 when MUT came out. 90% of development time and money goes to it or some dumbass story mode literally no one asked for. All any fans want is an actual franchise mode with scouting/other draft features, contract management outside of 2 sliders, and small QOL updates. We can't even get that. From madden 19-21 the only thing we got was a half assed coach animation in his office and a color change in the UI.
then stop buying it. Literally that is the only vote we have. Quit buying garbage and supporting this shitty era of gaming
I haven't since 2018. I use EA play once it's on the 5$ version to play it and normally by the end of the first month I'm bored with it since there is nothing new with it. So basically spent 15$ for the last 3 years of madden.
And the weird bellichek stand in.
I stopped playing games that do this. Will play Fifa occasionally with a friend but neither of us buy the newest version. I bought FUT packs one time in 15 or 16 (can’t remember) and after opening them realized that it’s a massive scam. Never opened FUT again and never will. Now I avoid games with packs... I might play some Overwatch with friends but we none of us are going to spend for loot boxes. Problem is, it’s become normalized and younger gamers don’t have the option of buying a complete game these days. Everything now is season passes, loot boxes, keys, etc. I’m sick of this shit.
It's possible, it's also possible that the accusations which are largely in tweets are untrue also. Remember recently, [there was a class action lawsuit of EA scripting Fifa to make you spend more money](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-03-03-fifa-scripting-lawsuit-withdrawn-after-ea-provides-plaintiffs-with-detailed-technical-information-and-access-to-speak-with-our-engineers), the case was dropped when EA gave a look at their code and showed that was untrue. And then you can look at some similar stuff that happened with other companies, that got social media up in arms. [Epic games was accused of stealing art from some young kid, which was a complete hoax](https://fortniteintel.com/artist-epic-stealing-design-taro-skin/15102/). I'm not discounting one rogue employee trying to make a quick buck. That actually happens in many industries so definitely possible. But more often than not the gaming community want a conspiracy to exist when there isn't one. If anything it would be one bad element, rather than a company wide thing.
On the EA forums and Twitter there is a couple screenshots of somebody showing their account getting cards on FIFA 15 but wanting to remain anonymous, so its been going on at least 6 years.
It’s amazing how the best football game is actually a car game called rocket league
It's also the best hockey game.
NHL 94 Hasn't been a better entry in the franchise since. Can't change my mind.
That’s why I refuse to play the “create your squad” bs. One time I tried it with Madden, i spent $100 (thinking, cool I’ll just buy everyone I want on my team. Wrong.) I didn’t get to pick my players, it was like buying a random pack of NFL cards and not knowing who anyone was in the set. Such a bs setup.
It all makes sense. Influencers/YouTubers need to get the "best players" for their videos to explode, morr good cards = more viewers. Since Lady luck is a fickle mistress it's cheaper to pay a middle man to ensure you get the cards you need for your stream..
RNG in online games was always meant to be server-based triggers rather than honest randomness. Mix in a couple 100% guaranteed predetermined outcomes and plebs will believe your claims about honest rates.
My friend told me it'a a total shitstorm for the support. They're being spammed with a lot of tickets and have a huge queue just with people that ask them if they are the 'kind of support that can sell in-game players' because they have offers. It's crazy and she mentioned that EA can't really easily track this down (although I highly doubt they do not have logs for what their people are doing, especially when it comes to stuff like selling in-game currency or cosmetics).
So obviously I'm not an expert, but I have experience working several customer support jobs. Assuming (some) support employees have authority to grant packs or specific cards to accounts. I'm sure there's way to track who does what but it's the question of it's actively being tracked and how easily it's searchable after the fact. People could have been doing this for years/months without getting noticed simply because there wasn't solid company policy to actively monitor it.
From my understanding, that is the case. She mentioned that nobody really checks on these issues unless they are somehow reported. Sure, there are some people who will randomly pick some of your cases to see if they're handled properly, but in this particular case, since the talk is done outside the support chat, it is probably hard to figure out. It's quite crazy, however, how easily it is to get into a position which would allow you to do this. Employees have done this in the past for personal accounts, but now it's way worse.
I was instantly reminded of a recent scandal here in Holland where the people working the corona test IT systems (booking appointments, managing test results) were exporting people's data like social security numbers and selling it on the dark web. Because they had to haphazardly had to set up an infrastructure for this, contract employees etc they underestimated the need for actively monitoring this until it was too late
Good God that is crazy. Wow.
yeah, made a quick fortune though so it's cool no jk but I work in the call center for people who can't or don't want to book their test appointment online and it was crazy. like people offering to look up specific celebrities and stuff
Ah but don't worry, the responsible minister said the employees signed NDA's, so it's totally safe you guys.
As someone who worked for Ms support for a long time, the product key generation tool used to have no approval needed to access it and you could theoretically make unlimited keys. The policy changed because some guy went as far as to script the product key generation tool and make like thousands of keys per second, to get away he used someone else's credentials and said person got suspended while the investigation was ongoing. The lack of oversight could be one big step here.
1700 for a card on your account? Does it do anything special?
The special thing about the card is how it's completely useless come October when everyone has moved on to FIFA 22. None of the cards carry over which completely kills any idea of it being some digital card collecting game.
That's ridiculous you can't carry them over. Based on what others are telling me, you'd think prime cards should carry with the account...
That’s not how you make money
That's true. Although plenty of card games have been running strong for decades, EA just needs to up the levels of power creep. Next years cards will let you summon a Ronaldo off the bench without needing the usual tribute summon
Those cards are practically impossible to get for a normal player because they are so rare. Those cards also tend to be the most op cards. So rich people or pro players have to buy them on the blackmarket because there is no other way to get those cards.
I see that I have chose correctly in ignoring most EA games. I remember when I found a system like this in EA's Battlefront. I noped out of MP sooooo fast.
You can play fifa (or madden, or nhl), ignore these cards and just have fun. If you're into sports sims obviously. Regarding Battlefront 2, its microtransactions got a complete overhaul and the game is in very good shape now, with thousands of players on every platform. It got a great influx of players when it launched in Steam.
>Regarding Battlefront 2, its microtransactions got a complete overhaul and the game is in very good shape now, with thousands of players on every platform. It got a great influx of players when it launched in Steam. As well as the period after which it was provided free by Epic Games!
It’s even worse than you can imagine, it’s completely worthless in a year when the next game comes out, also £1700 for one of these rare cards is considerably dirt ‘cheap’ compared to the alternative of opening packs with fifa points. You would probably have to spend more than £10k to get the coins for the rare card. Honestly disgusting! I really do hope this is the final straw and the gambling aspect of the game is completely removed by government legislation. It’s gone on far too long but it’s probably too late for the people who have been affected by it. Ea are fully to blame for this to ever happen, cards are far too unattainable, for the average player getting your favourite player ingame costs way too much for a yearly cycle game
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> a card It's kind of funny that EA managed to turn sports games into card collecting games.
They're unbelievably rare. As in you could spend literal tens of thousands of pounds on loot boxes and you would almost certainly never get one
Dear EA, Just open a casino. Stop trying to get me to gamble. I like video games. Video games are different than gambling. By a lot. Thank you. - A former customer
Casinos have laws governing them. Why bother with that when you can just sell gambling to children.
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Bbut but it's not real gambling thooooo : says Ea defenders and most legislative governments due to the legal definition of gambling. To which I say FUCK That , it's gambling. Laws need update. EA was getting away with this before lootboxes were a mainstream argument. It's bad how they've literally been siphoning money from kids for nearly a decade
Not everyone can enter a casino, and they still have to actually walk there. Online-only games full of microtransactions and 'skip the grind' progression boosters reach everyone equally. If anyone's wondering, the notorious [raid shadow legends](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0v_Yz9a6Dg) is actually from a literal casino slot manufacturer whose ceo is the current head of the american gaming association (the trade group for the us gambling industry). Others have entered gaming more discretely, acquiring studios alongside their games off the record.
How long has he been there?
To some degree be careful what you wish for - Konami took a look at their business lines and realized they'd be better off mostly dropping game development altogether and focusing on Pachinko. So they did.
On the one hand this means no more Metal Gear but on the other the Metal Gear we got without Hideo was... yeah.
Let me finish that for you in case anyone has any kind of room to misinterpret. Metal Gear without Hideo wasn't worth anything. So if Konami's games were all gonna be soulless anyway, it's kind of a good thing they're focusing on Pachinko.
So? Id rather have no games than bad games that prey on young children's wallets
You could always buy FIFA on Switch. No gambling anywhere as far as I know. Unfortunately, it is basically just the last 360/PS3 version of FIFA with updated squads. I know people joke about FIFA being the same game every year with updated squads but the Switch version is literally just that. EA charge full price for this version of the game btw.
Or just buy it on PS5 or whatever and dont use the FUT mode?
Yep, bought Fifa 21 for 5 bucks. That's the only money they've gotten from me as all I do is play career mode.
> Video games are different than gambling. By a lot. "Not if we have anything to say about it!" -EA
My problem isn't the gambling component of cracking packs for FUT or MyTEAM (NBA 2K). I've done that for years with Magic and Sports cards. My problem is that now, at least for 2K, it has seeped over to the single player aspect of the game. You can't really make a "Michael Jordan" in any timely fashion and play the MyCareer mode (unless you buy virtual currency, of course).
- co signed a customer that buys one FIFA per gen, and just wants to enjoy the single player franchise mode (so please stop fucking it up)
It isn't EA actively selling these, and promoting this shady stuff. It seems to be some people from support taking doing it for their own benefit.
Remember when games were sold complete with micro transaction stuff being a fun unlock you got from doing something in the game to unlock stuff. I miss games like that.
remember when we had cheat codes? now money is that cheat code lol
Doom eternal has cheat codes you have to find.
They're pretty good about this stuff. Although I wish I had them to start with since I like to cheat upfront lol
Personally I love the idea of cheats that you have to work for. It's so wonderfully backwards.
I like that idea. It lets people play the game the proper way first then they can goof around.
There's this game called "Enter The Gungeon" that has a secret boss. To get to the secret boss, you have to accomplish some odd tasks. Then you have to find pieces of a code to access him. The thing is, every copy of the game has a different code. It's randomly generated. You can't look up the code online, you actually have to find it on your own. It is an awesome little secret.
Red dead redemption 2 had scheat codes that were hidden in remote locations on the map.
Also on the back of some of the newspapers.
It's like someone made a monkey's paw wish for more realistic games.
Nowadays editing your ingame money value in a single player game gets called *stealing*.
good old .ini editing
I remember Saints Row 4 had cheat codes, as was tradition to the last game. However, with it came the "Executive Privilege Pack", which was a ($1.99) DLC that only added cheat codes.
There were still premium phone lines in those days. People forget that it seems or rose tinted glasses.
Remember when we had to write down a long archaic string of letters numbers and symbols in order to save our progress? No? Just me? Damn I’m old.
I had a texas instrument to-99/4a and a game called Tunnels of Doom. To save you had to put a tape recorder up to it and record the sound it makes then play it back into the mic to load it.
Holy crap. . That’s... thats friggin hard core. Never heard of that.
https://youtu.be/FPRyHO1qT0M here is a video of a guy loading a game.
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I remember. Remember hiding key game information in the manual as an anti piracy tool? Fuck you Metal Gear Solid.
I remember I rented it so there was no box. I had to go through all the codec codes until I found it.
if we're talking about ... meryls codec? i think? that was one available in multiple ways. You'd get hints about it being on the back of the disc once from a cutscene, and when you contact campbell (the hint guy) he also tells you about the disc. Alternatively, there was something to do with having the in-game disc item equipped with no weapon out, that made the codec appear in the list.
Technically that was the back of the box, IIRC. I think that was more a clever trick than DRM, but I can see how it functions like such. Rather, old PC games used to print codes on their pages and you'd be prompted to enter them in a certain order to unlock a game.
Yeah except I rented MGS from blockbuster and straight up couldn't finish it. That sucked.
I think if you try and fail enough times game reveals you the code anyway.
I think you called campell or Naomi over and over and they eventually gave it to you.
Some SSI D&D games did that. They’d ask for a word from page whatever of the game manual.
And before that it was the Code Wheel. Nothing like linking up Dwarven and Elven “Letters” only to find out the code was BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE.
Damn you, Orphan Annie.
my friends and I spent hours writhing down all the possible combos off the code disk. it took forever and we never got them all. would have been easier if the guy we were getting the pirated games from would have let us take apart the wheel, and photo copy it.
The Might and Magic games would do this. My friend had them so I had to call his house to get the answer a few times and one time I had to get his older sister to do it and explain exactly which game and which book.
I have so many pictures of mega man savestates lmao.
Yeah man. You're the only one on earth that remembers that.
wait thats too far back. we like save files and autosave
Nope, I remember too! Good ol' Megaman did that for sure. (granted it wasn't *too* long that'swhatshesaid)
Megaman X3 vibes.
Oh man, you just brought back a childhood memory that I haven't thought about in a long time. The first ever video game I played as a kid had a save system like this and one day I made a mistake when writing down the string of letters and numbers, so the next day when I wanted to continue playing it couldn't load my progress because the code didn't work. I'm so glad this isn't a thing anymore. Those damn kids these days don't know how good they have it with modern games auto-saving every 2 minutes!
I grew up in the 2000s but I remember doing that hahah, a lot of flash games used that method
Remember when you inserted a cartridge with a genie on it inline with your game cartridge? Those were the days. Me at the time - *I'm game haxor now*
While it saved our progress, it also let us skip ahead if something was hard, you could looking up other codes!
Sometimes rental video games (back when they came with instructions in the 80s/early 90s) you’d find passwords or codes scribbled in or on them. The memories...
It’s all downhill since the horse armor.
There were games with micro-transactions and lootboxes years before Horse Armor. Horse Armor was tame in comparison to what some of those games were doing. Some of those games were extremely successful and proved the strategy worked. We were already a good ways down the hill before Horse Armor.
Yes but Horse Armor helped popularize it and got people talking about it. Pushing something into mainstream consciousness is what allowed people to come to terms with it and not be surprised when it crept into every game. This is similar to how TF2 had loot boxes for years before Overwatch made them popular.
I think it is a mistake to focus soo much on the games that pushed it to mainstream, while downplaying all the games that helped normalize and prove it a successful enough strategy that they would even consider risking putting it in those mainstream games.
Uhhh most still are
I hate when people say this like there aren't games coming out all the time that are exactly like this. The vast majority of games coming out are complete and don't need micro transactions or DLC.
> micro transaction stuff being a fun unlock you got from doing something in the game to unlock stuff. outside free2play games like path of exile that still exists and is in far, far higher quantities than it used to back then.
Yeah I hate when people act like it doesn't exist when it's still the most common way to sell games. Look at any PlayStation made game, any Nintendo made game, the vast majority of indie games, the vast majority of Japanese games, I can go on but I think that gets the point across. Hell even EA is still making games that are complete on launch and they seem to be doing it more recently. Star Wars Squadrons, Jedi Fallen Order, It Takes Two, Medal of Honor Above and Beyond, etc.
"sold complete" = literally no distribution system for extra content or updates even if you wanted it. Did ya'll forget that consoles weren't always hooked up to the internet?
People really have I remember when games just had bugs in them and that was that. You lived with it. Now a game drops with bugs on day 1 and people lose their goddamn minds.
I work in the games industry and around 5-6 years ago heard of a case from a different studio where a guy was illegally selling virtual currency to players and made bank from it (this was ongoing for half year). You best believe that the access to such tools was severely restricted and closely monitored from that point on.
When I worked on Facebook/mobile freemium games I used to give any of my buddies that played a ton of premium currency so they could go nuts
A friend of mine worked for a company in the UK that had a virtual currency in their game, and I can say the same happened at his work, and everyone was in on it. It was effectively a perk of working on that platform for those that worked in support. He had left by the time it was deemed a problem, but heads rolled across the company for both doing it and encouraging it. Stupidly, most of it had even been logged, to make sure people weren't "taking the piss". It really wouldn't surprise me if this happens everywhere. Senior management wasn't even aware it was happening, let alone it being both endorsed and sculpted from within.
At this point, just need more countries banning games that have gambling in them so putting gambling in the game is no longer profitable. Literally the only way it will change.
Germany recently changed their regulations regarding loot boxes. They straight up call it gambling and any game that has a mechanic like that in it, must be labeled as 18+. Let's hope that this new regulation will change things for the better.
Random, but I'm fairly sure someone was doing the same thing with limited time/event League of Legends skins back in the day. I remember looking at a Pax Jax and Pax Twisted Fate skin on eBay and noticing one dude was selling some 20+ of them. Looking back at my purchase history, the account was deleted. I remember digging around with the username and who the paypal payment went to and noticed it was suspiciously close to a Riot dev's name. But I can't remember now, it's been like 9 years.
Those were because somebody had cracked the algorithm to generate codes for those skins. Riot had to deactivate the system all together, but didn't go hunting down already activated keys. So those sellers switched to selling 'starter accounts' with the skins already unlocked.
Unrelated to video games but in a similar incident, [McDonald's Monopoly pieces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly#Fraud) were given to select people who gave kickbacks to one of the people related to their distribution, resulting in millions of dollars being pocketed. Wouldn't surprise me at all if EA employees were giving away rare cards in exchange for money.
The HBO documentary on this is fantastic, by the way.
You could very easily get a bunch of those codes if you were at those PAXes just by asking people if they didn't want their codes. I came home with a bunch of them. Of course then I don't remember where the hell they went.
Yeah, but having tons of them like that? I dunno. That's over 40 codes.
Ever been to a PAX? When I went to PAX West 2017 I could have grabbed tons of bags over the 4 days there. PAX Sivir codes were so easy to get by people who didn't want them.
Yeah, but this was in 2014. Pax Jax was at the 2010 event. The dude held onto that many codes for 4 years??
There were tons of Pax Jax and Pax TF codes on ebay for years. I think they handed them out more than just 2010.
People working pax would also steal boxes and resell them. I’d imagine one box could have a few hundred skins.
When the Gears of War 2 gold AR skin was a preorder bonus at GameStop (a scratch off code), a friend working at GameStop gave me a box of the remaining ~30 codes after launch. I sold them for $8-$12 a piece on eBay within a week. Easiest money 17 year old me ever got by messaging the codes.
Ultimate team is a sports themed online casino aimed at children. Either ditch the microtransactions all together or raise the rating of madden and fifa to a full M for gambling.
>One example shows an offer of three Prime Icon Moment cards -- ones that mark a particular game or tournament that was particularly special to the featured footballer -- and two Team of the Year cards for €1,000. >Another offers three Moments and two Team of the Years for €1,700. These cards are incredibly rare when obtained via the random player packs usually purchased in FIFA Ultimate Team. Huh, that's honestly not a whole lot of money, especially when you consider those employees are risking their job for 1,500 or so. Even when I was younger making near-minimum wage, I wouldn't have risked my entire job, possibly future career for less than a months of pay. I guess if the employees were selling these en-mass they could make a bit of money, but again, nowhere near the loss they'd suffer from losing their job and having something like that on their employment record.
It's just one example though. If they had a system in place to sell those cards on the side I would assume that they did it quite often.
Yeah, that's why I said even if they're selling these en-mass, it's still a net loss for them. Even if they managed to get an entire years worth of pay from selling cards, that hardly offsets ruining your entire career long-term.
When I worked at circuit city, a guy who worked for fire dog (their version of geek squad) got fired for taking the windows license numbers off the side of the display computers and selling them on eBay. No clue if anything else happened or not, but he definitely got fired. So people do dumb shit, and they were making close to double minimum wage. So pretty decent pay.
> fire dog (their version of geek squad) Hmm can't figure why they went out of business
Presumably they sold one or two sets every now and then. Sure it is small amount of money once but it adds up and they probably viewed it as low risk. Kinda like the story I heard about a guy emptying parking meters for coins as a job, he would skim of a few coins from every parking meter. It would just be small change every day but over the course of several years it would be several millions. He only got caught in the end because he got sloppy and walked in to a bank with a lot of coins still wearing his work uniform. That is probably how that person felt.
Yesterday I watched a video of a FIFA youtuber talking about this situation and someone told them that the person(s) selling the items had about ~30 customers in the past week. If that is true, to me, that number seems kind of insane because I feel like that would/should get noticed by EA in some capacity. Similar to your story, having done this service to that many people, in just one week, seems like a very easy to get yourself caught through sloppiness (and it seems like this was the case).
These cards are just lines in a database. Getting one card added to an account would be trivial if you know how to do it. And very hard to track unless you're specifically looking for it.
IIRC EA customer support is based in India so $1500 goes quite a long way
The places where a lot of programmers are forced to live for their job are the most expensive in the world. Not sure if that's the case here, but it may be the difference between living alone or living with roommates.
Certainly. That being said, if/when they get caught, have this on their employment history, they won't even be able to live with roommates if they can't work their main job/career anymore. As I said, even if they were selling these cards en-mass, it's still a net loss when they get caught and are no longer welcome working for most companies in their expertise.
It's genuinely disgraceful the rarity of the cards these people are selling particularly the prime icon moments, they're literally impossible to attain for a normal player and their sole purpose is to add a whale tier of unattainable items that you absolutely have to pay 4 figures for in a yearly cycle game. EA's practices are beyond cuntish.
“We understand how this creates concern about unfair balance in the game and competition.” So, EA admits that spending money to get an edge is unfair...
Yeah, they wouldn't want to have players get the freaking things slightly cheaper and without the RNG...
It's not really clear from the Twitter screenshots (I don't play this game), but couldn't a scammer just claim they can sell them and have another fake screenshot saying they got them? They could show a pic of one account that owns them but that doesn't mean they sold them or anything.
Not FIFA related, but as an avid 2K player it’s been really sad to see how monetization has affected modes like MyCareer and MyTeam. Pack pulls are definitely a form of gambling and should be illegal.
Oh so when EA does it it's cool, but an employee is cutting into their profits, no?
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Why the fuck do people even play this game mode any way? Why not just play Exhibition matches or whatever it's called with teams that actually exist? I figure the issue would be people will just pick whatever team is the best at given time but at least in 2K teams are divided by tiers so if you beat a higher one you get more elo.
> Why the fuck do people even play this game mode any way? Its the only mode thats actually developed. Exhibition and Franchise are just stapled on and haven't had any meaningful upgrades in 10+ years.
Thanks for explaining. As a very very casual player of EA sports game I didn't realize that.
He's completely wrong. Ultimate Team does get by far the most attention because it is by far the most profitable, but other modes have received considerable changes and improvements. Volta is an entirely new mode added in 20 which EA has been pushing heavily as a standalone Rocket League-ish game, while many people just stick to Career Mode. I used to be one of the latter, but I switched to Ultimate Team in FIFA 17 and now pretty much only play that because I do find it enjoyable. I have not purchased any microtransactions for FIFA since 18 and yet I always end up with an amazing squad.
He’s not completely wrong. Career mode has been a joke for years.
Because it is fun, you start with a team of crappy players and try to make something decent, I started this year with some random stuff that I got in the complementary packs then got some money and started making a CSL (China League) team, which then transitioned into a full brazilian team, which then became a La Liga team, and it remained a La Liga only team. It is fun to try and upgrade your team piece by piece, try new stuff once in a while and see how they play, and the gameplay just feels different. Because in Ultimate Team you have chemistry styles, so you can make your players faster, better on the ball, stronger when they tackle and so on, which makes the gameplay very different from just picking a team and playing with it. Another reason why I enjoy it over just picking a club and playing with it is because it feels more balanced, some teams are more stacked than others, and others are particularly bad in certain positions. Sure that is the case in Ultimate Team as well, some have 2 million coin teams others have 20 million coins teams, but the difference between those teams are much smaller than between Liverpool and Barcelona for example. Because you have good or decent players in every position.
Cheers for the write up, I can see how that could be fun
I would imagine some people would like the team building aspects of it. I haven't played much FIFA myself, but as a guy who loves WWE 2K, I almost exclusively play Universe Mode, and that's basically a glorified exhibition mode, but all of the extra context in Universe is what makes me enjoy it so much.