Recently leaked documents allegedly expose exactly how EA drives FIFA players to buy Ultimate Team loot boxes. FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) has been the target of criticism for years due to its gambling-reminiscent player card packs, with the most recent controversy coming just in March when an EA employee was caught selling rare cards.
The Ultimate Team mode made its debut in FIFA 09, but it took time to become the money-printing giant it is now. Over the last few years, Ultimate Team has become more and more prominent in not just the FIFA series, but Madden as well, to the ire of some fans of the latter franchise. As the mode increasingly uses questionable monetization practices that EA staunchly denies are a form of unregulated gambling, governments around the world have begun to consider or codify restrictions on these and similar loot boxes in gaming.
Internal EA documents exposed by CBC allegedly show that FUT is not going anywhere any time soon. These slides are just a few pages from a larger, 54-page 2020 document that apparently accompanied an insider presentation. The documents contain several bullet points that emphasize not only the importance of FUT to FIFA's financial success, but also how EA planned to drive players towards spending money in the mode leading up to FIFA 21's release. A pair of bullet points explicitly say, "Players will be actively messaged + incentivized to convert throughout the summer," and that "FUT is the cornerstone and we are doing everything we can to drive players there."
The second slide outlines several key ways EA planned to advertise Ultimate Team in the months leading up to FIFA 21's launch, which included targeted messages, discounted bundles, and in-game advertisements. Clearing up any ambiguity about EA's intentions, one bullet point explicitly reads that the ultimate goal is to "funnel players towards FUT from other modes."
Since the release of FIFA 21, dissenting players have once again voiced their displeasure with FUT's loot boxes. Some have long claimed that EA only cares about the Ultimate Team modes in its premier sports franchises, but it now appears that there is tangible evidence to support this assumption. According to CBC, an anonymous EA spokesperson has responded by saying that the slides were being viewed without proper context.
While that is true in the sense that the slides are just two pages of a larger presentation, EA's intentions with FUT seem clearly outlined out therein, with no perceivable room for reinterpretation. EA has been fighting to keep loot box mechanics in its games for years now due to how financially lucrative they are, so it makes logical sense that it's apparently actively encouraged players to buy more. However, the way loot boxes fundamentally function is too close to gambling for some governments' liking, so EA may ultimately answer to those interested parties when it comes to FIFA Ultimate Team and other loot boxes in its games.
Source: CBC