FIFA Community Shows That Ultimate Team May Be Broken

This week, the EA FIFA community has been in an uproar over a potential glitch with a player affecting stat called Chemistry.

The glitch specifically affects Ultimate Team. A Youtuber, RighteousOnix, first showcased the glitch in a video he posted on June 25.

In his video, above, Onix shows how this potential glitch might be artificially raising and lowering player stats with no rhyme or reason. He uses the dribbling stat has his example. Once a player reaches 86 Dribbling he can perform a stepover sprint with the ball.

Over on Reddit, the FIFA subreddit has exploded over the issue.

What we’ve found:

Just to give a really quick run-down of what has been discovered, in lay-mans terms:

1) In FIFA Ultimate team you open packs to gain access to cards which represent players in the game. You can also buy these cards from other users.

2) When you build your team, by playing cards in particular positions, and with particular set-ups, you can increase their chemistry attribute. Having a high chemistry attribute on a player will give them boosted stats, having a low chemistry will nerf their stats. These chemistry stats boosts are huge for how your team plays.

3) It turns out that for a large chunk of the most expensive cards in the game, FIFA has not been attributing the stats boost to the cards afforded by their chemistry. Meaning that they feel sluggish, slow and clumsy in comparison to other, cheaper cards in the game which have been given the chemistry stats boost.

4) This means that users have been spending vast amounts of in-game and real life money, sometimes hundreds even thousands of dollars/pounds, to obtain player cards which are NOT what they seem and are in fact heavily nerfed.

The official FIFA forums at EA Sports are no different with some players seeking refunds:

“If they want to refund all my FIFA points ever spent in time for FIFA 17 coming out then that’s cool with me.”

So far, EA has not commented on the issue. Their Twitter feed is full on promoting Ultimate Team and FIFA 17 at this point. Neither the forums nor the subreddit feature any EA moderators jumping in.

It’s been mum from EA. If this Ultimate Team glitch is truly affecting the game, we’re surprised EA wouldn’t say something and try to fix it. EA makes nearly half a billion dollars per year on Ultimate Team alone. Driving players away with such a glitch certainly feels bad for business.

FIFA Community Shows That Ultimate Team May Be Broken

Annual Video Games: Are They Worth It?

Whether you play FIFA, MLB, Madden, NHL, or 2K, chances are, you will be buying the next iteration this year. Annualized games are great if you want a shiny new box every year, but do developers really provide enough content every year to justify selling a new game? If you ever find yourself asking this question you should know that every game is different.

Games like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed usually have more to offer every year than any sports title. The main things they have are a new world and a new story to help you explore the world. Many sports games lack this artistic element. Every once in a while, developers will attempt to integrate a narrative where it doesn’t belong. This might be refreshing and new at first, but more often than not it removes some of the freedoms that sports games offer.

For example, NBA 2K16 wanted a gripping and compelling story, which is fine until it gets in the way of gameplay. It did, a lot. If you’re not familiar, the entire first season of your career is dictated by the story. Other than your limited choice of college and a few minor things, all of your decisions are made for you until the end of your rookie season.

Previous NBA 2K games have integrated very minimal narrative element, but they never got in the way. In fact, the story and gameplay worked with each other and put 2K above other sports games. But if this forced, controlling “movie” in their games is the way they’re headed, then they can count me out. That being said, it would be interesting to see other titles take a crack at this.

An argument in favor of annualized games is the massive improvements each year. Games that rely so much on physics, reactions, and core mechanics need to be updated constantly because there are always going to be bugs.  Some may believe that an annualized game is a way for greedy publishers to make more money off of their customers.

If developers started releasing games every few years and then updated it for free every year, that could end up with them losing money. In my opinion, I believe that annualized games should be cheaper or offer a different way to pay such as a subscription that adds to a total of $60 USD every year. That way if you didn’t like that year’s title, you could cancel and not be at such a loss.

Like some sports, the gaming industry changes every year. This makes it important to have updated visuals, mechanics, and ideas to stay ahead of the competition. Things in sports such as rules, rosters, and where the teams play can change dramatically. Some of these things require a new game to integrate. For example, if the NHL decides to change how overtime games finish, you can expect to see that in the next NHL game.

EA is more than likely not going to update the current game when it is more beneficial to put it in the next. Some sports change all the time, and if you want to see immediate changes in your games, then they need to be annualized.

These are just some of key points that come up when talking about annualized games. There is always a lot that goes into these games every year. If you don’t know if you should buy a game every year, you just need to figure what is important to you. Do you want the new game with all the new features, or would you rather save the money and wait every couple years? The choice is yours.

What does it take for you to pick up a new sports game every year? Let us know in the comments.

Annual Video Games: Are They Worth It?

Peter Moore to Lead Competitive Gaming Division at EA

EA is looking to double down on competitive gaming, as the publishing giant has announced their latest venture, which is a brand new division of the company dedicated to competitive gaming led by the man himself Peter Moore. The goal of this new Competitive Gaming Divsion — or CGD, as it’s referred to in the latest blog post on EA’s website — is to “enable global eSports competitions” on some of their biggest titles, including FIFA, MaddenNFL, and non-sports games like Battlefield. 

The Competitive Gaming Division will focus on creating more competitive experiences for EA titles, and develop live events while also growing the competitive community. With eSports becoming a big business of their own, it’s a smart move on EA’s part, albeit a little behind. Still, it’s never too late to embrace a growing aspect of business, and it seems with this move that EA are fully committed to getting the most out of the competitive aspect of their games.

Joining Peter Moore on the new competitive gaming division is Todd Sitrin, who will take on the role of Senior Vice President and GM for the division. Over at IGN, Moore spoke about his new role at the company moving from COO to Executive Vice President and Chief Competition Officer, offering a bit of insight as to what’s in store for the future.

“We’re already very engaged with our development teams around the world to make sure our games have got modes that lend themselves very well to competitive gaming, built-in from the get-go. Not as something that’s put in as an add-on mode or a last-minute afterthought.”

Presumably that means we’ll see more game modes tailored to competitive gaming and eSports, though what that means for existing franchises is anyone’s guess. Moore did seem interested in the idea of creating titles from the ground up with eSports and competitive gaming in mind, however.

“I think there is a huge opportunity to build a game from the ground up that says, ‘this game is gonna have five modes, like capture the flag and tower defense.’ I don’t know, things that people love, we’ll figure all that out.”

Regardless of whether or not you think that eSports are comparable to sports as I wrote in my editorial on the subject published earlier today, they’re certainly taking the world by storm. What do you think of this move by EA? Are you looking forward to the future possibilities? Let us know in the comments.

Peter Moore to Lead Competitive Gaming Division at EA