EA FIFA 21 scandal

[Kryptonian]

I don’t know anything about ultimate team and how it works apart from you have to spend loads of cash to win as far as I can tell? Some EA employee has been selling desirable cards for thousands of euros:

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2021-03-10-fifa-21-rocked-by-ea-gate-scandal-as-company-employee-alleged-to-have-sold-coveted-ultimate-team-cards-for-thousands-of-pounds?__twitter_impression=true
 

The Twitter comments aren’t exactly what I expected with some people complaining it’s not fair as they don’t have the contacts to get the deal themselves

 

I can’t help but think this is why voting with your wallet is destined to fail despite feeling good  

[Gotters]

This struck me that if true, it's a bad agent with admin access to the game rather than a 'gate' where the whole game is bent - which it is with these cards but that is another matter.

[LaveDisco]

Yeah, but it serves to highlight ever more that FUT Is true gambling and needs to be legislated as such. 
 

As a teacher, I’ve seen 13 year olds admit to spending hundreds on it! Hundreds!

The defence that it’s not gambling as you can’t cash out is mind boggling to me. That only makes it worse than gambling! 

[Stoppy2000]

Yeah it's 100% gambling. It should be regulated. The fact that it isn't should be a massive scandal. 

[Timmo]

To put things in perspective, there are some streamers whp spend tens or even hundreds of thousands on packs each year, and there's still loads of players they won't get. This deal was £1,700 for five top cards and that is considered cheap, despite the fact that they will be completely irrelevent in 6 months when the next FIFA comes out. It's madness.

[TehStu]

We're in the situation where you can monetize being good at games and have monetized games endlessly, and the result is someone looking to feed off that system. Doesn't surprise me that this happened. 

 

This is a whole facet of gaming I wish we could just fire into the sun, but it'll never go away. It's like when BRAND(tm) realized they could monetize social media.

[carlospie]

I heard gooner for life bought 6

[gooner4life]

9 minutes ago, carlospie said:

I heard gooner for life bought 6

 

I've still got Gabriel Jesus and Lucas Moura in my team, I don't spend time or money on that crap anymore.

[CheekyLee]

As a former support agent for a mobile game, I can assure you that there are far more people than you can possibly imagine who are spending more than you can possibly imagine, but who are also prepared to spend EVEN MORE on getting the guaranteed rarest drops, in the belief that they will start winning more. It's just not true, sadly. I know for certain that I could have an entire squad of the most legendary players, but anyone with a modicum of skill at the actual game could beat me even if they used Crawley Town FC against my 1970 Brazil. (I haven't played FIFA for a few years, please pcik alternative examples if you know of better ones.)

 

But I still argue that it's not gambling. You absolutely always get something for the money you spend. If the packs were sometimes empty, then it's analogous to gambling. It's not even a lottery, you get cards whenever you buy a pack. That they aren't what you hope is about your own expectations. Note, here, that I'm not even trying to defend the practice of Loot Boxes. I just get annoyed when people are angry for the wrong reason.

[Stoppy2000]

You always get something. It's just that you usually get something that is not very good. You are putting money in on the basis that you might get something good. It's a gamble. As far as I'm aware the odds aren't freely available. If they were it might make more sense. 

As for the 'it makes no difference' defence. I used to regularly beat mid level players using a team that I spent no money at all on. Put me against someone who is about my level but who has clearly spent real cash and it is firmly an uphill battle (though not impossible). 

[Fry Crayola]

18 minutes ago, CheekyLee said:

But I still argue that it's not gambling. You absolutely always get something for the money you spend. If the packs were sometimes empty, then it's analogous to gambling. It's not even a lottery, you get cards whenever you buy a pack. That they aren't what you hope is about your own expectations.

 

This suggests a sports betting site could circumvent gambling laws by giving you some token consolation prize for every losing bet.

[Camel]

54 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

This suggests a sports betting site could circumvent gambling laws by giving you some token consolation prize for every losing bet.

 

Was going to post exactly this. Of course it's gambling. The weird definition of gambling you've posted is your invention.

 

"Do you want to gamble your prizes for Bully's star prize? Remember, the money you've won is safe."

 

"Well Jim, that's not really a gamble then is it?"

[Gotters]

whether legally it's classified as gambling or not is one thing, the more pertinent question is whether its triggering the same psychological responses and urges in those participating.

 

you never though the coconut shy at the summer fair was gambling because 'everybody is a winner' and gets a consolation prize, but you didn't want the shitty small bear with the misshapen head, you wanted the giant penguin that was 4ft tall and weighed 20lbs and were willing to spend a few quid and have a few goes to get it. you always went home with a lot of misshapen bears. 

 

anyway, the point being you aren't buying packs for the consolation prizes, you want the shiny ones and the punt is the odds despite being against you will come good - it's got to be a similar mental trigger to having a flutter.

[carlospie]

It's absolutely disgusting. The amount of shit in games now to peer pressure kids it's a joke. Almost every game on both my kids tablets has an ad every ten seconds, icons to telling them to speed up actions, icons to buy the full game. It's appalling. 

[SeanR]

1 hour ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

This suggests a sports betting site could circumvent gambling laws by giving you some token consolation prize for every losing bet.

money back if you miss your acca by one result!

[therearerules]

 

2 hours ago, CheekyLee said:

But I still argue that it's not gambling. You absolutely always get something for the money you spend. If the packs were sometimes empty, then it's analogous to gambling. It's not even a lottery, you get cards whenever you buy a pack. That they aren't what you hope is about your own expectations. Note, here, that I'm not even trying to defend the practice of Loot Boxes. I just get annoyed when people are angry for the wrong reason.

 

Just to let you know this is a terrible argument for the reasons already stated. If I charge people £5 to pull a ball out a bag to win either a car or a pencil, that's amazingly still gambling, despite the fact everyone gets something. It's not even analogous to gambling, it is literally gambling.

[LaveDisco]

15 minutes ago, therearerules said:

 

 

Just to let you know this is a terrible argument for the reasons already stated. If I charge people £5 to pull a ball out a bag to win either a car or a pencil, that's amazingly still gambling, despite the fact everyone gets something. It's not even analogous to gambling, it is literally gambling.

Absolutely correct. And that alone is enough to have be gambling and 18+. Except that FIFA is even worse, because you can’t even sell the pencil or car, you have to leave them on the premises.
 

And the premises burns down with everything in it once a year.

 

It’s a racket. 

[Kryptonian]

Although not strictly on topic, did in app purchases come about by companies fighting against jailbroken iOS devices so that it didn't matter if the game was acquired illegally, to get anywhere you had to spend £££ anyway? Or have I imagined this

[ryodi]

What I find crazy about FUT is you can spend a fortune on it but as soon as the next FIFA is released your collection is completely worthless, nothing transfers to the new game as far as I know. As someone who spent more than they should have done on ProAm player cards back in the day at least I had a pile of them sat in my bedroom once the fad has passed to look at as a valuable lesson (and why I have never bought collectible cards since) and I could always sell them for peanuts if I wanted to. FUT have a built in date where everything you spent is now worth zero. 

[gossi the dog]

34 minutes ago, Kryptonian said:

Although not strictly on topic, did in app purchases come about by companies fighting against jailbroken iOS devices so that it didn't matter if the game was acquired illegally, to get anywhere you had to spend £££ anyway? Or have I imagined this

 

I doubt it. I think they worked out it was the best way of making money.

[Hamus]

If it's in the game...get the fuck out of my office.

[Stoppy2000]

Also ultimate team is such a racket that the other game modes barely get touched. It's annoying as if they took all the paid stuff out it would be quite a compelling mode. It would obviously just make no financial sense for them to do. 

[Steely]

I dont know how much of this is true, but a quick google kicks out these kind of figures:

 

Quote

This is the third straight fiscal year EA has collected over $1 billion in revenue from UT, and it appears the game mode will only grow in the coming years as platforms like FIFA continue to grow in popularity.

 

To put this into further perspective, for fiscal 2020, EA's revenue topped $5.5 billion with $2.7 billion of that generated from players spending money on in-game content or live services.

 

Here is EA's net revenue from Ultimate Team game modes as of 2015:

 

2015: $587 million

2016: $660 million

2017: $775 million

2018: $1.18 billion

2019: $1.37 billion

2020: $1.49 billion

 

 

Being able to pay cash money for Loot boxes is going nowhere! They should be blasted into orbit, because they are an utter abomination.

 

The only reason they arnt classed as gambling is because people are making fortunes.

 

They are 100% gambling, dipshits can compare loot boxes to kinder eggs all they want but its not that, its truly addictive and its hooking into kids veins nice an early, its appalling.

 

Fair play to the countries that have already took a stand against it and banned cash purchasing of loot boxes, for some reason I just cant see the UK following suit. 

 

I rant about this as someone who plays Ultimate Team and I love a loot box! But from play not for cash...

 

If the fall out from this brings potentially banning back into light then well done to that greedy employee!

[Art Vandelay]

I usually just plod along in career mode here and there as that's kind of always what I considered a football game to be – I get a shit team and just play some games and buy players and that's about it. If they added in a little feature whereby I could upgrade the ground and set the price of hotdogs like in Ultimate Soccer Manager I doubt I'd play anything else ever again. I'd only recently tried ultimate team and it just instantly felt like one of those apps that showers you with cards and achievements and is delicately balanced to make you want to never put it down. I feel I have OK control of my compulsions, but elicited all the same responses in me as gambling does to be honest. Seems like a properly slippy slope to me.

[gossi the dog]

Maybe everyone should play Pro Evo instead. It has it's ultimate team like mode, but they absolutely shower you with players, that you'd never need to spend money to have a half decent team. Plus, it plays a far better game.

[sbrandon111]

They need to remove the ability to buy fifa points that allow you to buy packs. Obviously they wont but all in game items should only be available by playing the game.

Fortnite is another one that springs to mind but at least the shop items are cosmetic only, no matter how desirable they may be.

The players you can get in Fifa directly influence how good you are at the game. I'm an average player but had a loan Maradona for a few games. I was winning games i would otherwise not have won, no doubt. You should not be able to spend real money to gain an advantage in a competitive game. 

As much as i like Ultimate Team, i wouldn't object to it being burned to the ground if the keep the cash purchase option in the game.

[sbrandon111]

6 minutes ago, gossi the dog said:

Maybe everyone should play Pro Evo instead. It has it's ultimate team like mode, but they absolutely shower you with players, that you'd never need to spend money to have a half decent team. Plus, it plays a far better game.

I would, but the online service is terrible. If you can actually get a game it's usually a lag fest. It's unfortunate as it plays a much better game of football.

Also when i have managed to get a game, almost everyone has the same team. Ronaldo, Messi and Mbappe up front. A direct result of the players being so easily available.

I'm not sure if i prefer the rarity of the best Ultimate Team players, or the ease of getting the best Pro Evo players to be honest.

[Dan]

Things sure have escalated since I was at primary school and traded a Mars Bar for a foil panini sticker. 

[Eighthours]

18 minutes ago, Dan said:

Things sure have escalated since I was at primary school and traded a Mars Bar for a foil panini sticker. 

I had Wembley Stadium from Football ‘86 and Mr Desmond confiscated it. I don’t think I’ve ever recovered. 

[Soulstar]

19 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

This suggests a sports betting site could circumvent gambling laws by giving you some token consolation prize for every losing bet.

 

This was the first thing that came to mind. Hand out lollipops at the fruit machines, it will all be ok. Oh they do already in Las Vegas, it’s called free alcohol.