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The EA Sports FIFA community is in turmoil over a massive scandal in which fans allege that an Electronic Arts employee sold highly sought after FIFA Ultimate Team cards directly to players for exorbitant amounts of money.
EA said on Wednesday that it was investigate reports.
Earlier today, Twitter exploded with the hashtag #EAGate, as fans shared screenshots of messages from someone claiming to work for EA. In the posts, a seller is offering powerful FIFA Ultimate Team units called Icons and Prime Icon Moments, asking for up to € 1,700 ($ 2,035) for groups of certain cards. If the buyer agrees, the seller promises to add the special units to the player’s account the following Monday.
FIFA Ultimate Team normally operates on a lottery-based system, with loot boxes offering virtual cards that players can assemble to build the ultimate FIFA team. The more powerful the player card, the rarer it is. Dedicated fans can spend hundreds of dollars on these loot boxes for a chance to get a good card to help lead their team.
But the cards this mysterious seller offers are far better than what most players can hope to find at random – EA does not reveal the probability of drawing a specific type of card if it is less than 1%, and the cards at sell are extremely rare. Players who take advantage of this offer could theoretically win against almost any other team, even if their opponent had already been lucky with great cards from their loot boxes.
Fans are understandably upset that other FIFA Ultimate Team players may have cheated by paying an EA employee to add units to their account. EA said on Wednesday it was investigating the allegations and said it would “take swift action” if it discovered “improper conduct”. The company also said it is aware that this is creating balance issues for players and will update the community at a later date.
Asked for a comment, an EA representative told Polygon he had nothing to add beyond Wednesday’s tweet from the EA Sports FIFA account.
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