[Update: EA has since pulled the advertisement in question from the Smyths Toys catalog. In a statement to Eurogamer, the publisher explained
"We take very seriously the responsibilities we have when marketing EA games and experiences in channels seen by children. In spite of this, we're aware that advertising for FIFA Points has appeared in environments it shouldn't have. We have been working diligently with Smyths to ensure this advertisement is not distributed in any remaining copies of their 2020 catalogue. We have also undertaken an immediate review of all future media placements and are working to ensure each of our marketing efforts better reflects the responsibility we take for the experience of our younger players."
The original story continues below.]
Gamers who have been keeping up with EA's live-service games know that it is no stranger to microtransactions, but their blood may still boil to learn of an advertisement for FIFA microtransactions in a toy catalog to reach young players. No mere innocent ad, the company indefensibly took out a whole page of a magazine aimed primarily at children to explain in detail how to buy FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) card packs.
The advertisement specifically talks about using FIFA points which is a virtual currency that can be bought with real money and used in-game to buy FUT packs. FUT packs are a kind of loot crate mechanic that grants the buyer random virtual players that can be used in the FUT mode. This mode is by far the most popular mode and also the golden goose of the game, earning Electronic Arts over $1 billion for the third year consecutively. These microtransactions make EA a lot of money: in it's last fiscal year, EA made $1.5 billion from microtransactions in Ultimate Team modes across FIFA, NHL, and Madden.
This advertisement for FIFA 21 appeared in a UK toy retailer, Smyths Toys, in a magazine aimed at children. According to VGC the ad includes a guide to making an Ultimate Team with four steps, step two being just "use FIFA points to open packs." The other three steps allude to playing the game as usual by building a squad and playing games with them. This system creates a pay-to-win experience of online play, and has been likened to gambling. It's not just news outlets that are up in arms over this move by EA; on FIFA's dedicated Reddit community, players made their disgust known. One player expressed that not only does the magazine encourage paying to win at the game but does so in a way obviously aimed at kids, saying, "Normalizing in-game purchases for kids since an early age is so f--ing unethical."
Some European countries already classify loot boxes as gambling, with UK Parliament calling for their regulation as gambling. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft now require games made for their consoles to disclose its loot box odds, and the UK government was advised to ban the sale of loot boxes to children. There is still no legal consensus on whether loot boxes fit into the definition of gambling in the US, however there was a recent class action lawsuit brought against EA saying that its Ultimate Team mode breaches the state's gambling laws. The lawsuit claims that this mode attracts gamers and tempts them into gambling to build revenue for EA. The FIFA Points mechanic is predatory by design and beguiles gamers prone to addictive gambling habits to spend large sums of money on the game.
In August 2019 Garreth Reeder, FIFA Ultimate Team lead producer, said that he doesn't think the purchasable packs are a problem and that they have no plans to change anything in FIFA. Many players disagree, arguing that it's wrong for games to require real world purchases to unlock or receive parts of a game that they've already bought. The massive negative reaction to this latest development from EA is completely unsurprising, then, as it preys on children in an astonishingly mask-off moment of visible contempt for its playerbase. Unfortunately, it's also unsurprising that the notoriously greedy publisher would do something like this.
Source: VGC, Reddit, AllFIFAMistakes