EA Removing FIFA Points In Belgium

EA Removing FIFA Points In Belgium

After some controversy EA has been forced by the Belgium legislation to remove FIFA Points, Belgian Gaming Commission sees loot boxes as gambling.

Why are more European countries trying to avoid this kinds of “loot boxes” being sold to players, well, it’s a form of gambling, in a game like FIFA Ultimate team, players take the role of a coach, and can build their dream team, and while you can buy players from auctions it’s way faster to buy FIFA Points and get a FUT Pack and hope for the best, and what can you do if you didn’t get the player you wanted, then try again.

Read below the official statement from EA:

“After further discussions with the Belgian authorities, we have decided to stop offering FIFA Points for sale in Belgium. We’re working to make these changes effective in our FIFA console and PC games by January 31, 2019. This means that players in Belgium will not be able to purchase points to obtain FIFA Ultimate Team packs. Players still can access Ultimate Team and play with their existing players. All content in the game can be earned through gameplay, as has always been the case, and players can continue to use coins and the in-game transfer market. Any players in Belgium that have existing FIFA Points in their accounts can continue to use them, but they will not be able to purchase more. We apologize to our players in Belgium for any inconvenience caused by this change.

We seek to bring choice, fairness, value and fun to our players in all our games. In addition to providing players options in how they play, we include pack probabilities in our games for the transparency players want to make informed content choices. While we are taking this action, we do not agree with Belgian authorities’ interpretation of the law, and we will continue to seek more clarity on the matter as we go forward. The impact of this change to FIFA Ultimate Team in Belgium is not material to our financial performance.”

I can understand that EA wants to get more money from the game, that probably will make their games better, Belgium maybe feels like EA it’s avoiding gambling taxes and most likely they’re right, and me as a player dislike FIFA Points because makes the game feels like a Pay To Win title. Surely EA is not breaking any law by selling FIFA Coins and it will always be the user’s choice to spend or pass, but Europe is forcing more developers to ditch this kind of revenue and I’m OK with it, I miss the days where the cartridge had all the MB I needed, anyway paying to get more chances to win isn’t cheating?

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