EA Publishes Initial Findings Regarding #EAGATE FUT Controversy

One of the biggest news stories from last week concerns the #EAGATE controversy, where it appeared that an EA employee was selling rare FIFA Ultimate Team cards directly to players, skipping the process of buying card packs and disrupting the FUT economy as a result. EA themselves said they’d be conducted an internal investigation to get to the bottom of this issue, and today they’ve published their initial findings.

 

What Conclusions Have EA Drawn?

EA have published a blog post to discuss the first results of their investigation. EA have identified “one or more” internal accounts are behind the issue, but EA are still determining whether EA employees are behind the controversy: “It appears that one or more EA accounts, which were either compromised or being used inappropriately by someone within EA, directly entitled items to these individual accounts.”

Naturally, the content that has been distributed via this manner has been removed from the game, and EA are also issuing permanent bans to any player who purchased cards in this way. EA have also promised to take action against any employees who are found to have been engaging in this practice.

For their part, EA have addressed the fanbase’s concerns since the controversy started: “Regardless of these actions, we appreciate how concerning this is to all of our players, and we apologize for the impact of these improper grants within the community.  We also appreciate how extremely annoying and frustrating it is that this practice might have come from within EA.  We’re angry too.  We know that the trust of our communities is hard-earned, and is based on principles of Fair Play.  This illicit activity shakes that trust.”

 

So How Did This Happen?

EA states that this has come about as a result of “content granting”, a means by which EA can give cards to players without going through the card packs and other means. Usually though, this takes the form of a non-tradeable card that offers no value whatsoever.

According to EA, there are 3 reasons why they use content granting in FIFA Ultimate Team. Firstly, and most obviously, content granting can be used to replace lost cards that have disappeared due to a variety of issues. Secondly, content is sometimes granted to test accounts to determine how cards interact with live play, allowing for balance changes before being available on a wider scale. Lastly, discretionary content granting is promotions given to celebrities, pro footballers and even EA employees to recognise certain achievements, which have no coin value and can’t be traded.

This has likely been kicked off by a developer account who has had access to content granting, and has been used in the wrong way. EA’s investigation is still ongoing, but for now, they’ve suspended all discretionary content granting.

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