[Stubbs]

I'm surprised FIFA never gets scrutinised in this was, it's an £80 game each year and to make any kind of impression you need to buy packs.

I watched my son once where he literally spent what I'd given him on packs, looked at what he'd "won" and sold them all instantly for in game currency. When I asked why he didn't use any of them he said they were no good. He then repeated the same process on the rest of the packs, keeping maybe 1 player.

It reminds me of the behaviour of people addicted to slot machines, literally pumping in coins, recycling their winnings until they have nothing left.

After the Battlefront 2 debacle, EA said they were abandoning loot boxes and wouldn't do pay to win any more. They appear to have avoided it with Battlefield V, but FIFA still stands as the Daddy when it comes to pay to win and it needs to be destroyed.

[rchaud]

I downloaded FIFA15 on PS3 years ago, and I've only played it a couple of times for this reason. They have completely gimped the out-of-the-box features in terms of what you can do as a single player. Majority of gameplay revolves around Ultimate Team, which requires packs.

Makes me long for the days of FIFA 96-09, where you didn't have to buy a damn thing other than the game itself to play in tournaments with you favourite team.

The "recurring revenue" model has really soured the experience of playing video games.

[ahje]

> The "recurring revenue" model has really soured the experience of playing video games.

Yeah, and the worst part is that many video game companies would rather kill decent single-player franchises with low-quality games that nobody likes, in order to get multiplayer capability and loot-boxes baked into everything.

Ten years ago I spent quite a lot of money on video games. Now, I just can't be bothered anymore. Most of the games I bought ten years ago have more replay value than the ones on the market today. At the same time the market for gaming seems to have exploded, so I guess it's working out for them.

[ionised]

> The "recurring revenue" model has really soured the experience of playing video games.

In fairness, that particular model seems to be mainly attributed to the kind of EA/Ubi/Acti/ annual 'AAA blockbuster' shovelware.

All games I play currently on PC are free of this crap. No game I've bought in the last year has had anything like this either.

That said I mostly play games that are highly moddable.

[asdff]

Most of my friends who are religious about FIFA stopped playing online a couple years ago for the exact reason you described. FIFA is terrible about how they nerf players, if someone has a low stat it's like they are having a stroke when given the ball and half the time they loose control, despite the fact that the player is indeed based on a professional soccer player who can dribble the ball down the field blindfolded. RNG really has no place in competitive video games.