The gaming industry as a whole is under the microscope right now with regards to the value proposition of its DLC, season passes and micro transactions, and I wonder how far we are away from FIFA's Skyrim'esq "horse armour" moment, which sends it tumbling in to the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I for one, will take no joy in reporting it, if and when that moment arrives.
FIFA 16 has been out for a few weeks now and continues to ride high at the top of gaming charts around the globe. As you know already, we quite like the new gameplay once you get used to it, and seeming, so do a lot of people. Others think it’s the worst football game ever made, and so, in many ways not much has changed in FIFA land.
Except however, for a few slightly worrying new trends in Ultimate Team.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a Hero In Form as much as the next guy, but just a few weeks in to FIFA 16’s reign we’ve seen more Hero’s, promotions and TOTW In Forms than in any FIFA before at this stage. I’ve written a few articles in the past about the value (or lack of) that FIFA Points represent for gamers and therefore these recent developments concern me quite a bit.
The Hero In Forms are in fairness the result of some exceptional early season performances, which in turn set a precedent of sorts. As soon as EA gave Lewandowski a Hero In Form for smashing five goals in nine minutes, they had to do the same when Aguero did. Then when Ronaldo broke Real’s scoring record, it again seemed like a heroically neat fit. So perhaps this swathe of early Hero’s is merely coincidental?
That theory would hold more water if we weren’t also seeing an additional five players in the TOTW, and random promotional 2x chance offers to land FUT’s “top” players. Lets not forget that market stability and fairness were at the heart of EA’s vision this year, which doesn't quite tally with offering a double chance to land FUT's best players to anyone willing to spend big on FIFA Points, before even a month had passed since release.
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EA have always flirted with crossing the line when it comes to the volume of pack promotions, and one-off Informs. But on the basis that they remained few and far between, and came in volume later in the games cycle, they got a free pass of sorts. That at least allowed time for players to build up stocks of earned coins to spend, rather than having to rely on real money and FIFA Points to access those elite packs. Not possible for FIFA 16 if you wish to stay with the current curve.
Sadly some of the things we’ve seen so far in FUT 16 feel to me like profiteering from the games launch period more than planned activity, and it’s not being done subtly either. If the idea was to include full 23 man FUT squads in the TOTW for
FIFA 16 then great. But why do it from TOTW 5 and not from launch? Could it be a technical limitation, now resolved? I may be wrong, but that seems very unlikely given the speed at which EA have injected vast numbers of players in to Ultimate Team in the past. So why the sudden change if not to encourage more pack purchases?
Combined with that (as most YouTuber’s will attest), pack weights this year feel harder than ever, meaning that if you do go after some of the big guys on "offer" the chances of actually getting them are even less than in years previous. I’ve seen countless tales on Twitter of people blowing 150K+ and more on FIFA Points and not even finding a single Legend on Xbox. Whether they have the income to burn or not is irrelevant. Having a system that deals out probability on that scale so unfairly, just doesn't feel right under any circumstance.
Some of you are probably sat there thinking "well they've always done this, so why are you writing about it now?" And maybe you're right. But to me it always felt like FUT promotions had a legitimate reason. A MOTM was earned, a TOTW was tough to call or a big tournament was on. And yet this week we have our fifth Hero in Wijnaldum and 22 other In Forms which include Ibra and Neymar.
All players in TOTW 6 are I'm sure deserving of their spots for one reason or another, but the sheer volume that this stuff is coming out at is unrelenting. And if anything this new found thirst for unique In Form's actually diminishes their worth And how long before the bar for entry for a Hero In Form is low enough to accommodate a hat-trick? Or a brace? Or a great save? At this rate, I'd give it about two weeks.
The simple fact is, that every time a big or unique player gets released into Ultimate Team, EA's digital revenue spikes. So from their perspective why not release more Hero's? That strategy (if it is at play) is an incredibly dangerous one, and it's a very slippery slope once you get started. As soon as your profits break all known records (which they have) they always need to be bettered in the eyes of shareholders, and for us that only means more and more of this stuff happening in FUT. A self perpetuating spiral of doom if you will.
What worries me most is that these trends however insignificant they may seem to you personally, aren't the end, they're very much the beginning. And that in two or three years time, we could be looking at a shadow of the original FUT concept, which started off this craze back in FIFA 09. I guess the questions is, where will it end? Hero's every week? MOTM's every week? Some of you might wonder what's wrong with that, and perhaps it is okay to have more variety. But for me, these promotions undoubtedly increase the pressure on people to spend, and that isn't what FUT should be about.
How do you feel about the volume of In Form's and promotions in Ultimate Team? Let us know in the comments.
