“Fifa 21”: EA investigates “suspicious activities” in “Fifa Ultimate Team”
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“Fifa 21”: EA investigates “suspicious activities” in “Fifa Ultimate Team”

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Electronic Arts (EA), the company behind the soccer game series “Fifa”, is under pressure to clear up a kind of black market scandal involving the most popular game mode in “Fifa 21”. There are allegations in the room that one or more employees of the game manufacturer could have sold particularly sought-after digital content for “Fifa Ultimate Team” (“FUT”) to users – secretly and for three to four-digit sums of money.

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»FUT« is an online competition built into »Fifa 21«. The players try to build “ultimate” fantasy teams with professionals from real teams. They put their teams together on the basis of so-called player cards, which they receive via a virtual transfer market or in the form of so-called packs, from digital Panini bags, so to speak. These packs can be unlocked or bought – you don’t know beforehand which professionals are in them, that’s a matter of luck, just like with printed trading cards.

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“The chance of getting a superstar through a pack is negligible,” said streamer TimKalation in a recent SPIEGEL interview. “It can happen that you spend thousands of euros and still never draw a Cristiano Ronaldo.”

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“FUT” is controversial on the one hand because EA offers the players with the packs the opportunity to spend a lot more money within the game, which usually costs 70 euros. “In the scene of enthusiastic FUT players, 100 euros is nothing at the moment,” says TimKalation. »Even an investment of 1000 euros in FUT is still considered okay. Per year!”

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On the other hand, »FUT« has come under fire because the players’ fantasy teams compete against each other online. The following applies: Those who spend a lot of money on packs tend to have the better squad and thus a competitive advantage.

EA is investigating the situation

The current “FUT” controversy is about the fact that one or more EA accounts apparently issued very rare player cards after they were offered for sale online. The magazine »Eurogamer«According to extremely popular cards, so-called Prime Icon Moments, were on sale. Any purchases were presumably delivered in the course of “content granting”, a transmission method beyond the packs that EA uses, for example, when it issues cards as promotional gifts to real footballers or celebrities.

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The enterprise announced on Friday in a blog postthat “suspicious activity” had been pointed out. Individual accounts have come across “FUT” content that they would not have got hold of in the game itself, for example by opening packs or via the in-game transfer market. It appears, EA writes, that one or more corporate accounts “that have either been compromised or inappropriately used by someone within EA” are responsible for those digital content transfers.

What is alleged to have happened is “unacceptable,” it continues. EA does not in any way condone the issuing of player cards in exchange for money. In its statement, the company states that trading or selling content outside of the game is not allowed because this would lead to “unequal conditions for our community”.

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This sentence can be maliciously interpreted as follows: The unfairness that »FUT« already brings with it through the pack purchases is unfair enough to EA. There is no need for crude deals via other channels.

The extent is unclear

It remains to be seen what extent and what effects the black market scandal will ultimately have. However, many players are outraged that there was allegedly an illegal way of buying particularly rare cards for “FUT” in the immediate vicinity of EA. EA itself speaks of a “very small number” of accounts involved, although very small is a flexible term in view of the millions of “FUT” fans. The mode has long been considered the most popular »Fifa« game variant, EA earns hundreds of millions of euros every year with »FUT«.

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EA has now temporarily suspended content granting, the option to issue player cards directly to players under certain circumstances. For the time being, customer service could no longer compensate players in this way if they lost certain content due to technical problems.

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EA has also announced that it will take action against all employees who can be proven to be involved in the unauthorized trading of player cards. The accounts of players who bought tickets on the black market are also to be permanently blocked.

“We also know how extremely annoying and frustrating it is that this practice may have come from EA itself,” emphasizes the company and apologizes to the players of “FUT”. “We’re angry too.”

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