It's Over EA Sports

We haven't even hit December, but Me and EA Sports (FIFA) 24 are over...

Now I can't say how many of you read my early blog titled Five Games I Love To Help You Get To Know Me, but in there I chose the FIFA franchise as one of my five picks. For the past few years, it's been my go-to game to play in between the main games I'd be playing. Except I didn't realise that my 'casual' game was very much the opposite, as I didn't want to miss out on getting my rewards or grinding out match after match to get those limited-time objective players.

This year that's all gone and changed. Have I matured? Did I stop enjoying football? Can I just not stand that it's no longer called FIFA? No. No. Maybe just a little. It didn't start that way though. The introduction of the women's game into Ultimate Team was a big win for me, I found it fun combining squads of the Leicester men's and women's teams, before settling on a Bundesliga/Serie A mash-up team captained by Women's Bayern Munich midfielder Lina Magull. For around 7 weeks I was having a blast with the game. Putting my Leicester players through the EVO system, fighting my way through online matches and diving feet first into squad battles matches. Matches where I'd play the first half and then leave the players to kick off the second half without me, whilst I went off to crack on with another task in the house. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed the games, but slogging your way through Squad battles can be a chore in of itself sometimes. Still, it's all in the name of getting higher ranks to earn better rewards. Then that's when it hit me.

EA Sports 24 doesn't value my time. That's the simple truth. The gameplay is fun, but in terms of giving you rewards or granting access to better cards, it feels as though it's blocked behind a paywall or just some incredible luck. Because let's be honest about 1% of people will actually pull a usable card after the first month without spending money or grinding away for an obscene amount of hours.

It dawned on me a couple of weeks back as I was playing my way through division rivals trying to get my rewards, except I would come up against teams packed with the highest-rated players, or the latest Icons/promo cards, and it felt like every match was an uphill battle. Sure I would finish matches get a few coins and then have my rewards, but what I got was nothing better than my actual squad.

Congrats on grinding out over 30 matches in squad battles this week here are your mystery packs. Only to open them all and be treated with an 84 rated Koke for all my trouble. It wasn't worth the time or effort. As a result, my enthusiasm and enjoyment for the game started to sink.

Why am I pumping hours into a game, grinding day after day for rewards that mean nothing? Never mind playing online games where I can't even start on a somewhat level playing field. This continued week after week until I realised I was putting in so many hours only for my enjoyment of the game to dwindle the more I played. It's no fun playing against the same teams, the same formations and all you have to show for it is a card worth 2,000 coins.

Nevertheless, hope tried to rear its head with Black Friday deals, as 30 coin packs dropped, 3 repeatable 83+ rated packs appeared as rewards for squad building challenges and I even caught an SBC that gave you an 84+ guaranteed Trailblazers or Road To The Knockout card. So why not give it a go? I'd got coins and fodder to spare, so let's see what EA has in store for me. My promo card was an 85-rated Trailblazers Henderson... yay? Then after opening 3 full packs of 83+ rated packs, the best I came out with was an 86-rated Szczęsny ( the Juventus goalkeeper) and about 4 other cards that were either 85 or 84, but the rest, you guessed it, over 20 players rated bang on 83. Absolute trash. The thing I love about collectable card games is opening those mystery packs, not knowing what's going to be waiting inside the foil wrapping. Except with EA Sports, I know exactly what'll be there, useless fodder. There's no mystery, no hope of what might be inside anymore because the pack probabilities are just so low it's almost an impossibility of getting anything great.

So I'm done. I'm done wasting away my gaming time on a game that doesn't respect my time back. I get not everyone can have great cards, but I've played this game a lot, and I mean a LOT over the past 3 years and the best thing I ever pulled was a gold Kevin De Bruyne in the early months of FIFA 22, worth around 100K in gold coins. Which is pretty good, but it is nowhere close to any of the great cards that retail for 1 million coins plus.

Usually, my interest dwindles after Team of the Year releases when these supped-up cards come in as the final nail in the coffin for a game complete with powerful and expensive promo cards. This year it's happened a good deal earlier, my free time just can't handle dedicating its time to a game that doesn't respect me back. So I haven't played in almost 2 weeks and I've been spreading my time across a multitude of other great games. If I'm being honest I feel a lot better for it. Finally, I've removed the shackles of FIFA and its reward deadlines that had me grinding my nights away so I didn't miss out on a card I would use for a few days.

Oddly enough the game's bugs didn't bother me. In fact, it made me laugh. I've played matches where my opponent's striker scored only to then become invisible for the remainder of the game causing gusts of wind to arrive and tackle the ball away from me, before unleashing a heavy breeze into the top right. It was dumb and ridiculous. Though it became my fondest memory of EA Sports, and when a bug's your favourite moment in a game, it's probably not the game for you.

So I've called time. I'm sure I'll have those relapses when I crave those one-night stands to get my football fix. Just not with Ultimate Team, that mode is done. Volta and manager mode still deliver a fun time, though nothing special. They do just enough to scratch that football itch. I know without Ultimate Team my game time with EA Sports will drop significantly. Though I'll miss out on objective rewards and SBCs, that's okay, because I'll be off playing Spider-Man 2 and having an absolute blast with zero regrets instead.

What are your thoughts on EA Sports 24 at this moment? Have you fallen out of love too? Maybe you just think I'm a talentless scrub? Let me know below and as always thanks for reading. :)