FIFA micro-transactions really are a problem
What you do with your money is your business, you earnt it, right? I mean unless you stole it then maybe you should have a word with yourself.
Anyway!
If you’re spending it on microtransactions, then you’re probably not spending your money wisely, let’s be honest. It is one thing paying for things you know you’re getting – such as skins in Fortnite – but when you’re paying for loot crates, you’re technically gambling.
When you actually think of microtransactions, you probably imagine any EA game, especially Battlefront II or FIFA, with the latter actually being a huge esports title.
The phrase ‘Pay 2 Win’ is something that has become more and more popular, but those days could be well and truly other – at least in the loot aspect.
New legislation?
Hawaii senator, Chris Lee, is pushing for the Senate to discuss legislation to restrict regulation on loot boxes, as well as informing players on the actual odds of them getting something good.
So, how will this actually change competitive gaming, especially games such as Hearthstone and FIFA? Well, this will probably impact FIFA the most. If you have qualified or even tried qualifying for the weekend league on FIFA 18, you will see some ridiculous squads that people have clearly spent lots of money to put together. FIFA micro-transactions are real.
Competitive FIFA problems?
Now obviously, the better you are the easier it is for you to pick up coins, free packs and players. However, at the complete randomness of the loot system means you could spend hundreds on packs and still not get anything over an 85- rated player.
Last year, EA earned an incredible $1.6bn from microtransactions… a truly incredible amount. FIFA 18’s prize money so far has just been over £230,000. In fact, the winner got just $22,000 – which is less than a Football Manager 18 tournament.
So would regulations mess with EA’s plans to make Ultimate Team its main competitive game mode? Well, it appears EA isn’t worrying at all about future legislation.
EA not worried
“Going forward, we believe that live services that include optional digital monetization, when done right, provide a very important element of choice that can extend and enhance the experience in our games,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson told Gamespot.
So, it looks like microtransactions could very well be a future in EA games unless there are regulations – but how will it affect competitive FIFA? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how this turns out.