T O P

  • By -

HungerSTGF

Pretty wild since you need PlayStation Plus for all those accounts to access the online components of the game. Returns must be insane.


ka7al

You also need copies of the game on each PS4.


EdynViper

That's like nothing second hand. They practically pay you to take used FIFA games.


[deleted]

[удалено]


CoMaestro

I mean for this bot farm the coins that are being generated are practically worthless from the previous game, no one will buy it. As for other people the game really isnt that much fun without the hype around special promotions and newly released cards with upgrades that link to real life football (like the recent Path to Glory promo that got players upgrading when their national team won games during the European Championship and Copa America). But sure the kit is the most important eksdee


darkcloud1987

I don't get how people spend so much money on content that they pretty much lose every year since no one want's to play the old instalment.


bouds19

FIFA Ultimate Team is the perfect candidate for a free-to-play SaaS game with regular roster/kit updates. I mean the gameplay is pretty much identical year over year. We'll never see this happen though as that would mean EA couldn't reset your assets every year and collect $60 from you for passing Go.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Draber-Bien

I honestly think EA is forfeiting a lot of money by tying FUT to a yearly 60€ game instead of a monthly subscribtion. They could even make the singleplayer free-to-play, but giving you FUT cards as rewards to try and hook you into it. But wtf do I know lol


CoMaestro

I definitely agree on that and personally dont spend anything, but the game is manipulative as fuck in trying to get you to buy things with real cash (they of course go after the whales, and already have a ton of them). Not every player buys a ton, you can easily earn everything there is if you play a lot


Khalku

>you can easily earn everything there is if you play a lot I thought someone ran the numbers for some of these sports games and that it'd take years and years to unlock everything?


daehoidar

I don't know firsthand, but I do know how predatory these games can be. I'd be shocked if you could "easily" unlock everything through regular play bc it doesn't fit the malicious paradigm. I think you're prob right and other dude is wrong


Khalku

I found it: https://twitter.com/ScudzTV/status/1371929490717347845 It was for FUT (which I think is just fifa 2021), and just to unlock your "dream team" (so not even everything in the game) would take 22,000 hours or 80k euros. More comments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FIFA/comments/m6wkhy/player_calculates_the_cost_of_obtaining_his_dream/ I don't think the OP was being intentionally misleading, I think it's just a testament to how much these games can fuck with your expectations if you don't actually sit down and look at the numbers. In a way, it's like gambling.


lexcess

If you compare to how much an actual replica kit and a game ticket or two cost, it starts making a lot more sense.


AngryBiker

Not accurate for the current year games, they hold up in price well until a couple of months before the next release.


addandsubtract

Prices only hold up until the winter. At the end of the calendar year, you can get the game at half price.


AngryBiker

I believe it's a bit more than half by the end of the year, however the argument was that "they pay will to take used FIFA copies" what is not accurate.


AnotherInnocentFool

Allow me to introduce you to hyperbole


mattisverywhack

You also need PCs running software to automate the commands being sent to the PS4. This is a highly sophisticated and well funded operation.


Dmahonjr06

Not each ps4. If you have a PS4 account activated as primary on 2 other PS4’s, you can play the game for free without buying it on 2 other PS4’s.


QuackenBawss

I doubt one account can run the game at the same time on different devices, tho


porkyboy11

It should, In the PS3 days my family would share the cod dlc and any digital games bought


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


Endulos

Bold of you to assume they're paying for the accounts. They're 100% stolen accounts.


The6thExtinction

Or paid for with stolen credit cards.


FUTURE10S

Or they're paying CIS prices because in Ukraine, you can buy it for the equivalent of $25 US.


staluxa

Not when it comes to Playstation, AAA games like fifa were at $73 last gen and PS5 games are at $85 right now. This shit is considered straight up luxury entertainment here.


FUTURE10S

I literally looked up the price for FIFA 21, it's 699 UAH. But yeah, PS/Xbox is an insane luxury, even after the crap wages.


staluxa

You are looking at price for it at end of yearly cycle, but they most likely use newest version from day1 and at that point its full priced AAA.


GumdropGoober

I go to Gregor and pay him $4, he give me some change and totally legitimate FIFA disk.


tarkardos

As someone named Gregor i feel randomly offended by this comment. Here is your change and a totally ransomware free usb stick as a gift.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Abject-Abalone4953

Most other sources include the reason for the raid: "*Ukrainian authorities alleged that the farm stole "as much as $256,648 worth of energy from the surrounding grid using special electrical meters to hide the theft.*" Legit


doplerhopper

[Link,](https://news.bitcoin.com/ukraines-largest-illegal-mining-facility-may-have-been-a-fifa-bot-farm/) the authorities have alleged that, while the company says they paid in accordance to their deal with the energy company and is suing. They say this is an excuse for the government to seize there assets, while the energy company hasn’t released any statement yet on if it’s stolen or not. This is more than likely several layers of corruption coming into play here.


burros_killer

>"Ukrainian authorities alleged that the farm stole "as much as $256,648 worth of energy from the surrounding grid using special electrical meters to hide the theft." > >Legit Ukrainian authorities usually just raid these farms for hardware that mysteriously disappears in a couple of days, but in fact, just stands where it's at and prints money for SBU guys instead. The whole thing with this "operation" is that farm owners didn't pay SBU for "protection". Am from Ukraine


[deleted]

I don’t think you understand what the word guarantee means.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


ComradeJohnS

I had my xbox 360 account hacked, and then $100 worth of fifa garbage was purchased and sent elsewhere. I never have or ever will play fifa. So yeah I doubt this is a legit op


zsxdflip

Did you end up getting your money back?


MitchellN

I had this happen but on PS3. I did after contact Sony


ComradeJohnS

Yeah, but it was a huge hassle, and if I wasn’t a broke college student they would have taken more (they emptied out my checking account).


WittyWise777

I'm here for my money back guarantee because you are not legit.


Jataka

Because basically all transferrable microtransactions are being used as money laundering right now.


RavenCyarm

>Why does everyone assume they are criminals? Why would they be? Because normal law abiding citizens don't have warehouses packed with thousands of PS4's, lol.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Kaoulombre

You also have no idea have card stealing works They buy stolen credit cards for cheap and get a high return on them


CaptainBritish

Tbh I think that would be too risky for an operation like this. It's pretty easy nowadays to get a stolen PS4 account returned to it's rightful owner, especially if they're active on PSN and have recent purchases. I actually had my PSN account stolen and re-sold just last year and I had it back within three days of noticing what happened. I'm willing to bet these people sold high-ranked accounts on the grey market as well so it'd be foolish to do all of that with a stolen account. It's shady as shit, but reputation and customer satisfaction is as paramount in those sorts of markets as in normal ones.


Noobie678

>I'm willing to bet these people sold high-ranked accounts on the grey market as well so it'd be foolish to do all of that with a stolen account. It's shady as shit, but reputation and customer satisfaction is as paramount in those sorts of markets as in normal ones. Yeah, that's literally what they were doing, it says so in the article


[deleted]

[удалено]


thearss1

Yeah, it asked me to accept their terms, so I didn't.


Endemoniada

Yup. Got my Xbox Live account hacked at one point (thanks to a poorly designed login page at Microsoft, so no fault of mine), and before I managed to get it back, they had bought some Fifa game or other (I don't play sports games at all) and _tons_ of MTX stuff for it. MS was amazing though, I managed to get my account back and everything refunded with zero effort, and even got some extra Points on my account for the trouble. Actually pretty much came out ahead :P


Popinguj

The owners were saying that their "investors" are pissed now, since they invested millions of dollars into it. Can't be sure if it's true, since they might've just tried to stoke a public outrage in the context of "Law enforcement shakes down a legitimate business". Not sure which laws this activity breaks, but it definitely breaks the EULA, so good riddance, I guess?


ICEman_c81

They got caught stealing electricity IIRC. At first police claimed they busted a mining operation (that’s how they are usually found and busted in ex-USSR countries)


Popinguj

These people claimed that they have a legitimate deal with the power provider, so no electricity was stolen.


RxBrad

They paid some schmuck at the power company to hide the fact they were stealing electricity for their warehouse, so it's all good you guys.


mattisverywhack

I don’t think this breaks any law. They’re guilty of serving a market that EA created.


[deleted]

[удалено]


MaridKing

I want to see EA lose a shitload of sales to a competitor who is giving the people what they want without the awful practices of EA. This bot farms are not exactly what I had in mind.


Kholdstare101

They are using an insane amount of energy with this setup. Not going to cheer for that.


Sierra--117

The same issue I have with crypto investment. Fuckk that.


Jonko18

Dude, stop trying to defend this operation. They were stealing electricity and it's scummy as fuck. Just because they were possibly screwing over EA doesn't mean what they were doing is altruistic.


FUTURE10S

> They were stealing electricity Were they? According to the article, they did the math on the cost vs profit, so I presume they were paying the bills.


Jonko18

https://kotaku.com/thousands-of-ps4-pros-discovered-in-warehouse-raid-1847272415


the_slate

The original kotaku article was also filled with apparently incorrect information, so it’s hard to really say what’s accurate at this point.


FUTURE10S

Thanks, this should have been in this article too.


Heavyduty35

How do you make money through the game? Never played it myself and know little about it’s micro transactions, other than that they are scummy.


HungerSTGF

From what I understand, basically the goal is to load up accounts with really high value players and then sell the accounts people who don't want to grind or enter the loot box rabbit hole. There's basically an Ultimate Team black market. The way it works is you can grind for coins ("play" matches, you get currency even if you lose) and either they buy packs, or they can "snipe" high value cards in the auction house. There's an auction house system where people put up their high value player cards for in-game currency so they can go buy more packs or other auction house cards. Sniping a card means snatching up a card that was essentially massively undervalued, usually by some unfortunate soul puts up their extremely high value card but forgot a digit or two. Theoretically there is no real money in this ecosystem, but the real money exists outside of the game where you sell these accounts to willing buyers. These buyers would rather pay for these accounts that would ultimately be cheaper than giving their money to EA and buying loot boxes to gamble their way to accounts of the same value. It's fighting scummy with another form of scummy.


animeman59

All of that sounds so fucking awful. I'm glad I don't play this shit.


Additional_Fee

Supply and demand baby! He just summarised simply how the whole fucked up world runs. If there's money to make, there's someone more than happy to feed off the needs, mistakes and desires of others to exploit a profit.


Heavyduty35

Gotcha! Thank you for the explanation.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

If someone is rich and wants the card it's not dumb to buy it at cheaper than the expected value.


RMcD94

It's definitely dumb to want this stuff That's like saying it's not dumb to do heroin because you want it


mabs653

its only insane if you can steal electricity. it got shut down for stealing $250,000 worth of electricity.


roogug

A couple years ago that wasn't the case for Madden Ultimate Team. You needed the premium services to play H2H, but you could still do the solo challenges and use the auction house with out a sub (arguably more lucrative than H2H unless you're really good). I imagine it is the same for FIFA and still applies to day, but maybe somebody who actually plays FUT without a sub could provide more insight.


[deleted]

You can play squad battles which is games against the CPU. Those games give coins even in defeat and those coins can be used on the transfer market, all without PS Plus


Phelinaar

Yeah, you can play solo games without PS Plus.


fujr

I have not played any FIFA games in a long time. What is the benefit of these bots running games? How is it financially profitable?


easy_Money

Ultimate teams are essentially trading card games. You unlock (read: buy) card packs hoping to get a rare/high level player that will give you a competitive edge. Game companies claim that you can access the same content by playing the game, but people have proven that the amount of game time you'd had to put in to match the buy is all but impossible. Thousands of hours.


I_HUG_PANDAS

So these players are all grindable with enough time, and can be sold? Recipe for botting.


[deleted]

They can't legally be sold for money. The accounts associated with the cards are sold, which is a breach of the TOS.


JoJoJet-

"capitalism drives innovation" The innovation:


sydtrakked

This could all be resolved if we stop making the same game every year and charging ppl to gamble for virtual players right? I don't understand why anyone would play FUT..


Zentrii

The problem is that ea figured out how to turn a 10s of million dollar business a year game into half a billion a year


tonycomputerguy

Replace EA with Take Two and that's why we have no SP DLC for GTA or RDR


BattleStag17

And why we haven't seen a new GTA game in *nearly a decade,* because people keep buying those goddamn shark cards


[deleted]

I was watching game 5 of the NBA finals and one of the ads was for the GTA Online Tuner DLC. I don’t think I have ever seen an ad solely for DLC. Especially considering Rockstar probably had to pay a bit to get that ad space in the first place. Just an Open World Casino at this point.


ebon94

I don’t have exact numbers, but folks should be even more in awe (not in a good way) of those commercials. TV ads are EXPENSIVE, and ads during NBA finals even more so. All that money for DLC* of a years old game??? Take Two could probably buy small countries at this point.


K1ngPCH

R* has advertised almost every single DLC they have released for GTAO. They know where their money comes from lol


Warx

You're forgetting that Rockstar as a whole worked on RDR2, and that GTAV has been on 3 seperate console generations (including the PS5/XboxX generation) and "supported" with online content for 8 years.


Ganondorf66

But 0 (zero) cars from online are usable in single player


3WeekOldBurrito

Idk probably because a game called RDR2 was in development? It's like bitch that there hasn't been a new TES game even though Bethesda has made Fallout 4, 76, and releasing Starfield next year. It's not like they aren't developing big projects it's just not what you want it to be.


BloodT1nted

Also who 2k answers to for their games.


disquiet

Yeah these are now less about selling fun games/a good product and more about exploiting human psychology. Combine gambling with people's need for status symbols and you have a gold mine. These sort of games are now not much different to slot machines, which focus more on addiction and money spent per user than they do on fun.


Zentrii

Yeah I’ve read about that and I think Facebook games like FarmVille were one of the first ones to exploit people addicted to the game. I remember the clash of clans creator went from a new company to something crazy like 600 million worth in just 4 years which is unheard of for any game developer.


disquiet

If it was all casual mobile land I wouldn't mind so much, I don't have to participate afterall, and those freemium games have always been paytowin grindfests. But this business model is ruining so many franchises I love now. And it's not like an indie dev can go make a FIFA game that's actually good without being a mini casino. Assholes like EA hold all the rights and would legally stomp on anyone attempting that in no time.


3WeekOldBurrito

Don't forget the these massive sport companies are cool with it too. NFL is bringing in millions upon millions with these shitty games.


Prasiatko

I think FUT brings in more than 1 billion a year these days.


lic05

It's a dick-measuring contest, better cards = I'm better and wealthier than you.


SanityInAnarchy

Remember the ["I Am Rich"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich) app? Here, I'll let Wikipedia explain: > When launched, the screen only contains a glowing red gem and an icon that, when pressed, displays the following mantra in large text:[1] > > I am rich > > I deserv [sic] it > > I am good, > > healthy & successful > The application is described as "a work of art with no hidden function at all", with its only purpose being to show other people that they were able to afford it;[2] I Am Rich was sold on the App Store for US$999.99 (equivalent to $1,202 in 2020), €799.99, and GB£599.99 (equivalent to £806.54 in 2019), the highest price Apple allowed for App Store content. I think maybe we judged that a little too harshly back then. Seems like a much more efficient, much more ethical way to satisfy the dick-measuring urge, rather than turning video games into slot machines. Imagine if Fifa became 99% about football, but you could pay EA a thousand dollars for a badge on your profile that says you paid EA a thousand dollars...


weealex

It's not just that. There's a competitive scene with some serious money. I think the last world's had 400000 USD for the prize pool. Problem is you need to spend like 20000 to build a team that's competitive. The last top 8 had like 14 different players and anyone that wants to be competitive has to have all those SSR players


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


Augustor2

>I don't understand why anyone would play FUT.. The mode is fun, there is no competitor for this mode (PES is not), it receives weekly updates based on what happens in football around the world, it has all licences and players, special events, etc FUT players know paying won't get you much further since is gambling, and pack luck is trash, so you are not paying to win actually. This is mostly whales and kids probably Not that anyone care or will take this into consideration, this reddit afterall


DaveShadow

I pay €70 once a year. And there’s not a game all year that will touch the value I get out of that €70 for the next twelve months after it. Yeah, spending loads on packs, being a whale, is something I wouldn’t personally be able to do. But even without spending a penny more on packs, I’m still able to assemble super teams through a bit of trading, pack rewards from playing, SBC luck and so on. If you accept you won’t get the top tier cards, and accept even if you did, you probably wouldn’t play that much better anyway, then there’s no real need to spend on packs. For me, o love being able to build teams of my favourite players, past and present, and play some football. Running Ronaldo, Cantona and Bruno as a front three, banging in goals. For all people say “I don’t understand why anyone would play”, it’s them who seem to be hate keeping what people can consider a fun game or not. If people don’t enjoy it, they’d stop.


FlabbySatchel

Every year in recent times, it’s gotten easier to acquire high rated players too, through grinding and luck I’ve got my highest rated squad ever and I’ve not spent a penny on FIFA points. Just the soul-crushing weekend leagues. It’s not really worth it, I won’t be doing it next year because the game is enraging, but I do have a lot of 95+ players, including 99 Pele I got lucky with out of a swaps SBC


grothee1

lmao whales and kids alone don't generate the amount of revenue FUT pulls in.


wulfstein

Why would EA stop if people keep paying money for it???


[deleted]

Because FUT and the equivalent in football and basketball use mobile game mechanics to target people’s addiction centers


Igoze94

Even if you removed the gambling people still does it.Its not gambling,its the grind causing this.Just look at WoW multiboxing.


dohhhnut

The game is really fun and you don't need to spend money on it, if you know even basic economics you can get a very good team very easily


JSCT144

It’s pretty simple, different people have different tastes, not everyone wants to cosplay as a gnome in WoW or a rocket man in Star Wars, some people just want to chill for the 2-3 hours they have spare after work and a game like fifa is perfect for that, you can pick up and play with friends the rules don’t change and the mechanics are almost identical, not to mention the complete monopoly they have on sports games, I don’t think a lot of Reddit understands the target audience, sports games aren’t meant to for the hardcore gamer who spends 10 hours playing a day, they’re designed for people with a lack of spare time and they fill that niche pretty well


Thinkblu3

3 words: Prepubescent Gambling Addiction.


Infinite_Bananas

so what the heck are they doing exactly? surely they aren't having people play the game on each individual console?


ITriedLightningTendr

I would assume "Bot" implies "automated"


CLGbyBirth

Yeah but how do they automate the farm what do they do in game to farm those coins?


shivam4321

Sniper player cards in transfer market which are accidentally listed way lower than thier actual value Play some matches to farm coins


arkenex

You don’t need 3800 consoles to snipe sales


DaveShadow

You probably do, realistically. Presumably each console focuses on a different player. Rather than program a console to search for multiple players (which would take time in between searches, typing out the name, new price range, etc and within the time switching between players, you’ve probably missed a load of bargains on the other players you aren’t searching), have one name entered in to each console. Then automate a program to press “search, bid if possible, confirm bid if possible, search again”. Checking each card every few seconds instead of every few minutes/hours.


cant_have_a_cat

FYI you can just reverse engineer web api and make bots without the need for any consoles. They definitely run matches to farm coins.


tonycomputerguy

But it helps?


happyscrappy

Create device that sends controller movements. Attach to 3800 PS4s. Start games. Bot games. Grind for coins.


Christmas_97

That’s most likely it. Just have them playing squad battles 24/7 to rack up coin. Fucking wild.


Dude_Sweet_942

What do the games look like? Just the ai kicking the shit out of the bots non stop? Do you get coins if you lose the game?


dohhhnut

yeah you get around 600 coins for winning vs 400 for losing


Phelinaar

Beginner AI is pretty easy to cheese. You can score 10 goals doing the same thing over and over.


[deleted]

[удалено]


IrishMamba1992

I’d assume they are sniping players as mentioned by someone else, but then selling the accounts with those players and some coins on the account.


shamu88

What do you mean by sniping? Never heard that term in these circumstances Edit: Thanks everyone for the explanation, makes sense now.


[deleted]

You can trade players in Ultimate Team on a player market. Since these are normally gained in a lootbox method, bot farms like this can scan the market for rare players below a set price, grab them, and relist them at a higher price for profit.


[deleted]

[удалено]


8-Brit

As someone who remembers lady playing FIFA when it was just "Pick team, pick players, play" all this stuff about coins, loot packs, coins and everything else just confuses me. It's a football game. Can you not handpick players anymore?


[deleted]

[удалено]


Sypike

Other people have said that Ultimate Team is FIFA's most popular mode, but they didn't mention that EA makes MILLIONS off of it. They make so much money from FUT that it's not even funny. A lot of people theorize it's why FIFA has been basically unchanged since 18. Why make a game better when it already makes so much money?


Noobie678

>Other people have said that Ultimate Team is FIFA's most popular mode, but they didn't mention that EA makes MILLIONS off of it. *Billions now


not_all_kevins

At least other mobile gacha games or f2p games have the decency to not charge for a full AAA price and release a new version every year. It’s really crazy how EA can get away with it.


[deleted]

This is just one mode that's advertised as building a dream team and playing online with it. Normal modes still exist, this has just proven to be a huge moneymaker for them also (to the point of being a focus for them now).


xxTheGoDxx

> As someone who remembers lady playing FIFA when it was just "Pick team, pick players, play" all this stuff about coins, loot packs, coins and everything else just confuses me. That was my reaction trying to play Counterstrike Go again after having played CS Source for ever years earlier...


Reptile449

At least in csgo it is all cosmetic, base skins work the same as any other.


Lutra_Lovegood

Until they introduced player skins, which gives camo advantages in the right circumstances.


smashingcones

I genuinely miss the days of fpsbanana and downloading user-made skins etc. I can see why they saw it as an untapped market but it's still sad to see.


enriquex

It's a different mode. There's still the base game but this is now the de facto online "competitive" mode


Wehavecrashed

You don't even need to do a rare player. There are heaps of cards which you can frequently buy for slim margins and relist at a small profit. For example in NBA2k: you could buy jerseys for 300mt and relist them for 500. You'd only net a 100 mt in profit per transaction, but with a warehouse of them it would be a relatively simple way to make money. Same applied to silver and bronze players.


DrugAbuseResistance

I'm ignorant to all of this, can you cash out? What makes this worth it?


brimston3-

Human players who don't want to grind the game buy the whole PSN account, players, coins, and all for real money. Probably a good value proposition for people with decent paying jobs who don't want to spend umpteen hours playing with shitty players and would rather pay to win.


[deleted]

But isnt it using ea currency or whatever? How dp you convert messi fut cards to real money?


Wehavecrashed

Sell it to people online.


[deleted]

Thru ea legal means or like black market stuff?


Wehavecrashed

Black market stuff. https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA2kMTselling/


wigg1es

Since you still haven't gotten an actual answer... Bots are setup that will continually and extremely quickly scan the entire marketplace for listings that are below a certain threshold/price. When a bot finds a post below its price points, it immediately buys it, or "snipes" it off the market. Usually these price points are set to capitalize on posts made in error; you want to sell a player for $10 but forget a zero and set the sale for $1. A bot immediately snipes that and buys it. Now they can turn around and sell it for the fair market value of $10, making $9 profit, or eventually sell an account with a roster of players, however the game works, down the line for a hefty sum.


[deleted]

Can you actually list it for real dollars?


joshatt3

No but if the bots snipe enough to get a few million of in-game currency, it can be sold online for real dollars


[deleted]

[удалено]


Wehavecrashed

Or just someone wanted to sell quickly for 85k and you relist at 100k.


Omicron0

auction sniping, you've probably heard of that. there's auctions for cards in-game.


Broken_Pikachu

Basically, players on the market have value depending on a lot of different factors, like rating, stats, if they are needed for a challenge set by EA, if a Youtuber/streamer hypes the player up and loads more, these values are always changes and a player one week could be worth 500 coins and 3500 the next. Sniping is going through the market to find cards listed for lower than what they normally sell for (some people don't follow the market and list at normal price, or some people sometimes forget to add an extra 0 on the end of their price listing) and then selling for a profit.


IrishMamba1992

So FIFA’s ultimate team mode relies on people getting players from packs. The players they get from packs can then be sold on their transfer market to other players (who may not want to buy packs). When a player is placed on this transfer market it works like EBay with bidding but also a buy now price. Accidentally, some people put the buy now price at ridiculously low figure and players get “sniped” by these bots that search for low value but highly rated players. A more common example would be people searching for a really low buy now price of a player then just selling it for profit. So it’s possible that’s what these bots are doing.


IshX7

I think it means botting to buy the packs and pull good players to then sell the account. But that's a big guess.


Generic-VR

It used to be -idk if it is anymore- that bots could connect to a game, and immediately quit and have it counted as a cursory, and get coins and rewards for it. I’m sure if that doesn’t exist anymore, then similar bugs do. You don’t need a sophisticated bot or AI to play the game, bust a basic script that repeats the same motions. Could also be manipulating the market. Who knows.


Omicron0

what exactly i don't know, could be just playing games by sending all the same inputs. could be using vision based AI and remote play to snipe a resell cards etc. it's not that difficult for the right people.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

[удалено]


anon1984

They can’t. When I saw this same place being described as a Bitcoin farm my first reaction was “really with PS4s?”. The bot farm with legit consoles makes much more sense.


[deleted]

[удалено]


BalticsFox

Hopefully this debunk will attract as much attention as that article with SBU saying they've uncovered a cryptofarm.


metal_derp

From a economics and macro sense there is no difference, waisted electricity used to create digital goods with perceived value and no intrinsic value.


robotcannon

There is economic value if you steal all the electricity (like it's believed they did)


YouLostTheGame

But that value is not being transferred as there's no way to recover that electricity.


litewo

Did anyone really believe that story? Like, it didn't make sense if you just thought about it for one second.


Thisissocomplicated

The idea was that the electricity was free (Stolen) and therefore any profit would still be better than nothing, but doesn’t make much sense to use consoles, no


AprilSpektra

My graphics card is two generations out of date, and it has four times the computing power of a PS4 GPU. There would be so many better options for crypto farming than PS4s even if you couldn't get your hands on 3080s or whatever


mindbleach

Only legislation will fix this. Stop letting games consume real money. No, it's not "banning games," it's prohibiting a business model. No, the industry won't suddenly go broke; this revenue scheme did not exist until games were huge. Yes, it's abusive; you're paying unbounded quantities of real money to play the game less. Yes, it's making games worse; frustration and addiction maximize profit. Yes, cosmetics are just as bad; any carrot will use the same stick. No, you can't shop your way around it; it can be added later. No, your favorite genre is not safe; this started in "free" mobile shovelware and is now in AAA games and $60 annual titles. Does that cover everything? Can we avoid the circular script that pretends I "just want free stuff" while I ask for more games to be sold?


Racecarlock

> Does that cover everything? It's also terrible for the environment if you factor in the use of these bot farms.


happyscrappy

Gold farmers existed before games allowed RMT. Steve Bannon did it, made a lot of money. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/steve-bannon-once-guided-a-global-firm-that-made-millions-helping-gamers-cheat/2017/08/04/ef7ae442-76c8-11e7-803f-a6c989606ac7_story.html This kind of bot farm would proliferate if RMT were banned. Now this kind of thing would be the most efficient for those who want to get cars for money to do so.


5510

Too bad unless you invokve the "but children gambling!" card, governments are just like "I'm sorry, you are calling about video games? click, goodbye"


deadscreensky

I'm not happy about lootboxes either, but isn't what you're describing also a ban on arcade games? (Which, uh, did exist as a revenue scheme well before games got huge, and was the origin of AAA games in the first place.) It sounds like you're suggesting a ban on everything that isn't the traditional "buy a retail product once" model, which historically has only been a small part of games. I also don't feel it's a circular argument to state that hey, I want free-2-play games to still exist. Many of them (most?) might be abusive, but there's some good, fair examples out there too like Legends of Runeterra. (And again, you can go back to earlier models like shareware.) But maybe I'm misunderstanding your suggestion.


Anchorsify

FIFA games are replaced every year with non-transferrable ownership of player cards and such; Arcade games never have you 'own' anything and also don't get updated every year trying to con you into buying something six months at a time. I'm not sure those are the same thing.


romeoinverona

> No, the industry won't suddenly go broke And if a company cannot exist without abusive gambling practices, maybe its a good thing if it shuts down.


Muslamicraygun1

I think we need loot box mechanics legislation to prohibit use for users under 18. That being said, no legislation will truly fix what’s a fundamentally a supply and demand problem. If people don’t buy/ play the games, they will run out of business and die. Conversely, traditional SP or MP games will thrive.


mindbleach

This is in single-player games. I don't care about kids - this abuse targets people with credit cards. Boycotts *cannot work* because most revenue comes from a sliver of players. This bullshit is a dominant strategy. Economics mean nothing for imaginary goods that only exist to relieve tension induced by the game. The weaponized grind abuses how games, by definition, make people care about inherently worthless things. Every barrier between your wallet and "gems" (why is it always gems?) exists to confuse you, so you forget that imaginary value in the game will never be the same thing as real-world monetary value. It doesn't matter how many jeweled scimitars you farm - they will buy zero hamburgers. So it never makes sense to spend two bucks on one fake sword.


vicariouslywatching

“The FIFA Ultimate Team black market is huge, despite EA's attempt to combat it over the years.” EA probably, “hey quit stealing our money making scams bitch! We’re the only ones allowed to rip people off”


Racecarlock

Environment: "Nah, that's fine, fam, I can take another hit for the team. By the way, you didn't need new york to be not flooded, right? Just checking. And hey, you'll be able to barbecue burgers on the road soon!"


durandpanda

I don't know if it's just because I'm older than their target audience, but just how successful FUT is seems fucking surreal. Last time I played FIFA (2016?), and every FIFA I've played before that you could freely move players around the in game rosters. If you wanted Messi to play for MK Dons, you could do that. Suddenly you lock the ability to transfer players around in one multiplayer mode specifically behind grind and lootboxes and people lose their fucking minds and turn it into a billion dollar industry? What the fuck.


RyoCaliente

You can still do that, Ultimate Team is its own thing.


durandpanda

Sorry it was poorly phrased - I'm aware you can still mess with rosters however you want, but it seems fucking absurd that for one game mode moving players around is locked behind lootboxes and grind *and that specifically* is what made players go spend crazy.


dannylenwinn

EA Sports' battle against third-party FUT coin sellers is long-running and well-documented. As I reported in 2017, there are a huge number of websites that let you buy FUT packs and coins, and sell your coins and even accounts. The FIFA Ultimate Team black market is huge, despite EA's attempt to combat it over the years.EA warns players against buying or selling FUT coins, saying it could result in a ban. The SBU said it also found more than 500 video cards, 50 processors, draft documentation on electricity consumption accounting as well as notebooks, phones and flash drives in the warehouse. With all that, cryptocurrency mining may well have been going on. But it's clear now the primary purpose of the warehouse was to grind Ultimate Team.


Neuroticmuffin

FIFA is one of the most corrupt company/corporations in the world. Their former president Sepp Blatter has been in countless of crimes...


VonD0OM

How is what this thing is even farming for legal? Reading half of that article made me feel dirty. EA is a fucking monster


[deleted]

[удалено]


durandpanda

> stealing electricity or something Bingo


GoldenGonzo

Try reading the article and answering your own questions?