FIFA Ultimate Team's "Battle Pass" is a good approach

I moaned when I saw FIFA 20 had launched a new mode with yet another currency in play, the third can be spent in the game. "Coins" are meant to be used FIFA 20The street football career in futsal / street football only, and they only buy cosmetics, thank goodness. But on closer inspection, they get rewards that can help make modes under the ubiquitous – if not necessary – influence of microtransactions a little more acceptable.

FIFA 20Volta's football mode offers its cosmetics on a timed basis, much like the "battle pass" model that people have become accustomed to in other non-sport live service offerings. The players have two weeks to get kits, shoes and a manbun hairstyle before the stock runs.

We can obtain this information by filling in a set number of goals or by arranging the appropriate pile of Volta coins – which are freely won through the competition, as well as being able to be purchased. But looking at their costs and goals unlocked, I do not see how I could not get everything with two weeks of play therefore, not even very qualified.

Screenshot of Polygon via EA Vancouver / Electronic Arts

It does not seem to bother people in FortniteI thought about it. Why do not they do this kind of thing with Ultimate Team??

Oh, wait, they are.

In the Ultimate Team menu, I discovered that I had 45 days to level up or hit a bunch of goals so I could go with an Eden Hazard ranked 91, a kit resembling lederhosen, a tifo and a stadium theme. . This roughly corresponds to the spread of the skin of the weapon / character / skin of the weapon / badge that players are used to in shooters offering a pass of content for the fight. FUT offers a lot of work, but even the most militant anti-microtransactionist will want to enjoy playing Ultimate team. That's why everyone gets angry: it's a fun mode and concept that is weighed down by shopping and the ridiculous time spent on menus. The only way to get this stuff is to play.

Screenshot of Polygon via EA Vancouver / Electronic Arts

I had forgotten this on my first quick trip in FUT because it was on a menu under the usual goals of integration, which can be ignored. FUT and his cousin Madden offered content prizes forever, including as a reward for performing tasks, but they did not do it on a time-limited basis, and rarely for a specific reward. Madden NFL 20 Ultimate Team this year will award you Baker Mayfield or Deacon Jones, ranked 85, for completing a long series of goals, but these goals are not limited in time. Madden 20 offers a team challenge of the week that changes every seven days, but that assigns a player at random, so it's a different kind of beast.

Whatever it is FIFA 20 that I can do, with its FUT seasonal goals and even the cosmetics of Volta Football, is something that I can support. I hope that sports titles that rely on these modes of microtransaction to feed the bulldog will see more in depth. The defense of microtransactions in sports games, as there is one, is often that they are parked in a separate mode and totally avoidable if you do not like them (although it is do not at all the case for NBA 2K20). FUT's seasonal booty is inside the mode itself and it can not be bypassed with real money (which is an important differentiator of the battle pass model elsewhere).

It's also something that reminds old guys like me from the pre-DLC era, when we had games to unlock in good faith in sports video games, whether they were extracted using a secret code or tour de force. When you talk to sports fans irritated by the priority and deference accorded to microtransaction modes, you will find that a good shot will make them notice that the virtual extinction of the unlockable elements has occurred since. It's really missing people, so anything that looks like free unlockable content would be good public relations.

The more Ultimate Team or MyCareer gives the impression that the only viable way to reach a goal is to have the cash, the more people will get upset and the more you will get black market sellers of the currency that the publishers insist . . That's why the seasonal content of FUT and the rotating drops of Volta Soccer seem so deep, if they seem ordinary to you. It's because I'm used to specific objects that have a very high virtual currency cost and that I'm used to receiving rewards in the game like a loot box or a pile of currency as opposed to something specific .

You're not going to put MTX toothpaste back in the tube – not when NBA 2K19 was still one of the top 10 market players, even one month before the launch of his successor. But it seems like developers are starting to realize the need to make their modes viable, fun and inclusive for people who do not want to spend money, rather than putting down a velvet rope and assuming that whatever hides behind is voluntary – buyer / willing – seller.