If there is one thing I’ve learnt from scouring the forums on Reddit and watching players on Twitch is there is a lot of anger towards EA right now. The recent patch effectively capped the transfer market, setting min and max prices for every single player. According to EA the idea is to create a market in which every player has a fair opportunity to obtain the highest rated players.
The Ultimate team market has been heavily inflated for a long time due to players purchasing coins through websites effectively giving them the opportunity to buy whatever they wanted without working for it. Something needed to be done as the market was completely out of control for a vast majority of players. However what they have done is taken away a legitimate money making option for players who used the market to make profits. Not only that, the change has for the short term seen certain players go ‘extinct’.
This mega-thread on Reddit shows what players have become either non-existent or been reduced to nearly nothing. When I was on the market earlier I was surprised to see the activity of transfers happening had dropped by at least 50% and I noticed how few big name players weren’t listed. It is understandable, players at this stage don’t want to lose the coins they spent and are waiting to see if this change is permanent. An example is Eden Hazard, I bought him for around 650k not too long ago and now his max price is around 470k. It is a huge profit loss and it makes sense for people to be reluctant. It is reminiscent of what Jagex did with RuneScape 2007 many years ago to reduce the influence of coin sellers and what almost saw the end of RuneScape.
The general consensus is that EA is leading everyone back down the alley of paying for FIFA points to obtain packs. It is a cheap shot to many legitimate players who used the market to build their team. It is the quickest way to build your team without resorting to coin-buying websites, especially since the matches reward very little coins. It is a big call for EA to make this far into FIFA 15, and it may cause a huge backlash for FIFA 16’s potential. This kind of change might have worked brand new with FIFA 16 on release, but that is a big maybe. At this stage if EA wants players to continue to fund their cash cow that is Ultimate Team, they are going to need to fix the mess they prevented from happening.
