The "EA Gate" scandal has been drawing quite a bit of attention lately alongside FIFA 21. The scandal began trending on Twitter recently when it was alleged that an EA employee sold FIFA 21 cards for thousands of dollars. As well launching its own investigation, the company has announced they will be taking action against those who have purchased any of the FUT cards via the scandal, even if they didn't help orchestrate it.
In a recent post on their website, EA has made it absolutely clear that it will not tolerate players who have perpetuated EA Gate through acquiring the rare FIFA 21 cards "nefariously," saying that accounts found to have done so will be banned permanently. EA has made it known that it does not condone this behavior, calling it "unacceptable" and adding that this illicit practice runs counter to the integrity of the game as well as being a violation of the end user license agreement.
The conglomerate has made this announcement as part of its own investigation to see which employee at EA is responsible for the FIFA controversy. So far, it appears that only a handful of people may have been involved in it, however EA has said it will take action against whoever masterminded it and will remove any of the items from the FUT system.
The items being sold are part of FIFA Ultimate Team and are rare items which can include Icon cards or Team of the Year cards. Normally, these items should only be obtained through random loot drops, something which is often negatively associated with EA's gaming practices. If people are selling these rare cards, it means they can bypass the loot system in a kind of FIFA-based black market where they can pay upwards of thousands of dollars for them.
It looks as though EA is really trying to crack down on what's been happening by looking to catch and punish players and staff who were involved. Despite this, the company says it understands that this is not tarring fans with the same brush, and that it knows this is equally frustrating for those who do play the game legitimately. FIFA 21 is just one of many soccer games that have become huge successes over the decades, making the franchise one of the most popular sports titles in the world, and subsequently has helped EA's sales grow recently. It's hardly surprising then that EA doesn't want this scandal to mar its reputation, even if that reputation can be shaky at the best of times.
FIFA 21 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: EA