EA says it needs to work on "real solutions" for FIFA players who lose control of their spending

EA has said it needs to work on “real solutions” for FIFA players who lose control of their spending.

But it failed to commit to fundamentally changing the way FIFA’s controversial Ultimate Team monetisation works, even in the face of a potential change in UK law.

EA has come under pressure in recent years for Ultimate Team’s loot boxes, which some UK organisations have said should be considered gambling.

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Ultimate Team lets you obtain players of varying effectiveness via virtual packs of cards, which can be bought with an in-game currency obtained through gameplay, or with real-world money. These loot boxes display pack probabilities, but players never know exactly what they will receive.

EA made $1.62bn from Ultimate Team in its last financial year – and most of that was from FIFA. Net revenue from Ultimate Team represented 29 percent of EA’s total net revenue during fiscal year 2021 ($5.6bn).

While Ultimate Team is one of the biggest money-spinners in all of gaming, it is highly controversial. It has been labelled as gambling, not least by some governments, is called pay-to-win, and has been slammed as exploitative.

In recent years there have been a number of stories that have emerged about players, some of whom are children, who have admitted to spending too much time and money on FIFA Ultimate Team. In April this year, new research “robustly verified” a link between loot boxes and problem gambling, and found that large numbers of children are opening loot boxes.