Recently it was confirmed by EA that a number of FIFA Ultimate Team trader accounts were hacked. The long-running soccer simulation series has been immensely successful for its developer though there was some speculation last year that the FIFA organization might split from EA in the future.
The FIFA franchise is no stranger to controversy and a main contributor to this constant attention is FIFA Ultimate Team. FUT is a game mode that allows players to build and manage their own teams and the entire gameplay function relies heavily on loot boxes. The way in which EA constructs its FIFA games as a whole was called into question last year after leaks revealed a push towards loot boxes was a key design philosophy for the developer. This is largely due to the lucrative revenue the practice generates, however, the contents of loot boxes for FUT have extreme value to others outside of EA as well.
Eurogamer recently reported that the gaming giant has confirmed a number of high-profile traders had their accounts hacked by means of phishing. The hackers cleared the compromised accounts of all FIFA points and coins that are said to be worth thousands of pounds. Currently, the estimated number of accounts affected is less than 50 and EA stated that it is working with the proper account owners to restore what was stolen.
Since its addition to the franchise, FUT has spawned a widespread black market revolving around it. Just last year a FUT bot farm of 3,800 PS4s was shut down in Ukraine, demonstrating the measures some are willing to take in an effort to make a lot of money through this game mode. EA has had to clean up quite a few messes left by FIFA's black market, however, it does not appear like the developer is any closer to preventing these sorts of incidents from occurring.
It seems that FUT is always entangled in some form of controversy even though the exact nature of that controversy changes. The only argument for keeping such a problem-laden feature is that it generates enough revenue for the developer to cancel out all the negativity that comes with it. Given FUT's tumultuous history, it says a lot about just how much revenue the game mode alone brings to the company. No matter how FIFA changes going forward, it is almost a guarantee that some form of FUT will be present until it stops making ridiculous amounts of money for EA.
Source: Eurogamer