Last week, EA found itself embroiled in a scandal after it came to light that at least one company employee had been clandestinely selling FIFA 21 Ultimate Team card packs, which contain incredibly rare cards with low drop rates, for between $1000-2500.
On Twitter, #EAGate started trending as news began to spread about this questionable activity and many gamers, particularly those who had spent large amounts of money trying to obtain these rare FUT cards the officially sanctioned way, spoke out in anger.
EA’s immediate response was to announce that it would be launching a thorough investigation into the alleged controversial employee activity and would ban any FIFA accounts that had obtained cards through this black market. Now, a few days later, EA has revealed that it has uncovered a small number of accounts engaging in questionable activity. “One or more EA accounts,” said the company, had been “used inappropriately by someone within EA,” who had granted items to these compromised accounts.
As the investigation continues, the company promises that any employee found to have sold FIFA 21 items to players will be reprimanded. In the meantime, EA has stopped discretionary content granting, an internal company practice that enables employees to legitimately gift in-game content to EA accounts for testing, marketing, or compensation for customer service issues.
The specifics of EA Gate came to light when a Twitter user by the name of Arcade-Fut posted a number of screenshots of a message thread in which a customer and EA employee discussed pricing for acquiring FIFA 21 Team of the Year and ICONS cards, which are highly valued due to their rarity.
According to one image, this activity has been going on for years, as a message in Spanish revealed that it was an employee at EA Germany selling the cards with the assistance of two intermediaries and had been doing so for “at least three years that I know of.” This employee apparently needed only the buyer’s EA or PSN ID in order to complete the transaction.
While an employee illicitly selling FIFA 21 Ultimate Team cards is understandably upsetting to many people, it draws attention to a situation that is perhaps more problematic. FIFA card packs and loot boxes have long been a contentious aspect of the video game series, so much so that government officials have launched investigations in various countries into the practice and questioned whether it counts as gambling.
In recent years, an increasing number of stories have surfaced of players spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on loot boxes, not just in EA games but in other titles as well. The fact that a number of people consider it less expensive to spend $1000-2500 to purchase FIFA 21 card packs under the table through this EA employee speaks volumes about their faith in the likelihood of obtaining these items legitimately.
FIFA 21 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Gamasutra, Twitter/Arcade-Fut