A lot of stuff is Iike that. Ultimate Team in Madden or FIFA, without the monetization, could potentially be one hell of a game mode (though also maybe hard to balance). The idea of being able to build out a team to your personal preferences and play style and match up against others head to head is awesome.
But “fuck you, we want users dropping $10k on their team”, so we can’t have nice things.
That’s basically what ultimate team is in practice.
If it had no cash involved and was either tuned to a level where a normal person could build a team that was competitive at the high end in a month or so (since it is, ultimately, an annual game) or you just had a budget and could sign who you wanted (based on “market value” that was set based on overall rating and position or that fluctuated with how many people had a guy on their roster), it could be awesome.
But yeah, it’s basically a card game (that I think also has cards expire, though I don’t play it at all) that’s designed to milk whales for cash. And they replaced a lot of the normal Madden tournaments you could win money playing to use this nonsense mode instead.
The only semi-saving grace is that it’s mostly self contained. There are obnoxious ads for it, and other game modes haven’t seen the development work they should because they spend most of the non-engine work on that nonsense, but you can still just play online head to head of a great football sim if you tune out the nonsense.
It’s super scummy and I would love to see legal involvement shut it all down. Lootboxes are unregulated gambling and in sports games specifically they’re very obviously targeting kids.
So I think it was “games played” “contracts” and there were ways to earn extensions through normal play when I briefly played the single player part a while back. I recognized the giant trap for what it was and bailed and am not sure the current state, but if it did exist and is scummy and makes them more money, I’d be surprised if they walked it back.
Removed by mod
You say “shitty”; they say “lucrative”.
A lot of stuff is Iike that. Ultimate Team in Madden or FIFA, without the monetization, could potentially be one hell of a game mode (though also maybe hard to balance). The idea of being able to build out a team to your personal preferences and play style and match up against others head to head is awesome.
But “fuck you, we want users dropping $10k on their team”, so we can’t have nice things.
Removed by mod
That’s basically what ultimate team is in practice.
If it had no cash involved and was either tuned to a level where a normal person could build a team that was competitive at the high end in a month or so (since it is, ultimately, an annual game) or you just had a budget and could sign who you wanted (based on “market value” that was set based on overall rating and position or that fluctuated with how many people had a guy on their roster), it could be awesome.
But yeah, it’s basically a card game (that I think also has cards expire, though I don’t play it at all) that’s designed to milk whales for cash. And they replaced a lot of the normal Madden tournaments you could win money playing to use this nonsense mode instead.
The only semi-saving grace is that it’s mostly self contained. There are obnoxious ads for it, and other game modes haven’t seen the development work they should because they spend most of the non-engine work on that nonsense, but you can still just play online head to head of a great football sim if you tune out the nonsense.
It’s super scummy and I would love to see legal involvement shut it all down. Lootboxes are unregulated gambling and in sports games specifically they’re very obviously targeting kids.
Removed by mod
So I think it was “games played” “contracts” and there were ways to earn extensions through normal play when I briefly played the single player part a while back. I recognized the giant trap for what it was and bailed and am not sure the current state, but if it did exist and is scummy and makes them more money, I’d be surprised if they walked it back.
I lied. One more obnoxious probable side effect: FIFA has new anticheat that’s Windows only and I’m guessing the new Madden might also.