It looks like Electronic Arts is not getting any break. Recently, the video game company faced a massive backlash from players and politicians alike with the in-game purchases at "Star Wars: Battlefront II." The issue is yet to be resolved, but now they are confronted with another issue concerning "FIFA 18."
Players of the highly-popular soccer video game are disgruntled about a lot of issues in the game, especially its heavy take on in-game purchases. The issue has gotten so severe that a consumer campaign called #FixFIFA was generated, prompting players to boycott FIFA's new deals on Black Friday.
In-game purchases to create an Ultimate Team is not new in FIFA. However, players find that they have to spend an exorbitant amount of time to gather enough in-game currency to create their Ultimate Team, so they are encouraged to just spend real money on player packs.
This infuriates the players especially that drop rates for top players are not officially released, and the likeliness of spending just a dollar to get a top player like Christian Ronaldo is rare. Of course, players can just engage on challenges and tournaments to earn the currencies needed to upgrade their player packs, but with a team comprising of 11 players plus substitutes, the time commitment needed is enormous therefore buying the player packs with real money is tempting to some.
"I get that Ultimate Team was designed to make money for EA, lots of money. But the balance has shifted from a good game with micro-transactions to one where you kind of need to spend money to save time, unless you're super lucky or one of the greatest players," said FIFA YouTuber Goran Popovic. Popovic posted a video detailing the game's issues that need to be fixed.
Other players also posted on Reddit, and various threads and hashtags are also circulating on Twitter. A Change.org petition was even created, already attaining 27,000 signatures in just 72 hours.
EA has yet to comment on the issue.
