#FixFIFA campaign looks to boycott EA's in-game Black Friday deals

[Cal Jeffrey]

Electronic Arts has made plenty of headlines in the last several weeks, mostly involving loot boxes and progression system controversies in two of its most prominent titles — Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Need For Speed: Payback. Both of those games have received considerable negative feedback that EA has been forced to address. A third property has also come under fire but has not received as much attention.

Despite having been out since September, FIFA 18 has not seen the attention that SWB2 and NFSP have gotten. Perhaps it is because those complaining about loot boxes and microtransactions are just more vocal. FIFA does have loot boxes but that is not the main problem.

For the last few weeks, players of the popular football (soccer) title have been complaining about numerous bugs and other issues with the game. Most of the griping has been through social media with the hashtag, “#FixFIFA.” The criticism has gone relatively unnoticed but that may be about to change.

Reddit user SSROCK has been urging players bomb EA on Twitter with #FixFIFA and to boycott its deals and promo packs for in-game currency it has on offer for Black Friday.

“I know there are a lot of you who are like 'I'll buy FIFA points, I'm only one person' but seriously, if we all band together and stop buying microtransactions -- it will have an impact on EA,” says SSROCK. “Hurt them where it matters, their wallets.”

@EASPORTSFIFA #FixFIFA Fix the gameplay. This game isn't the game I originally purchased. I wanted Fifa 18, not Fifa 17 Version 1.1

— Adam Schefters Mom (@ScheftersMother) November 20, 2017

Another player, Stuart Holmes, has started a #FixFIFA petition at Change.org that has already gathered over 30,000 signatures. According to Holmes, one the problems with FIFA 18 arose with Patch 1.04 which rolled out in October. Apparently, the update reverts gameplay to a previous FIFA style while abandoning the new one which everyone seemed to enjoy.

“Many users were happy regarding the way the game was.. that was until patch 1.04 which came in October thus giving the game a complete overhaul of game mechanics due to Long shots/Goalkeepers not being upto scratch ( In Pre-Patch ). This then became FIFA 17.2. [That is to say], gameplay reverted back to a FIFA 17 style of play.”

Other complaints listed both in the petition and SSROCK’s post include input delays to the servers during online play, freezing during squad battles, invites not working correctly and issues with matchmaking.

Another big grievance is changes to the Weekend League which now require players to compete in 40 matches over one weekend. At 20 minutes per game, that is over 13 hours of play time and when you include time for organizing the team, it pushes it closer to 16 hours.

Holmes says that much time on the game over a two-day period “is both mentally and physically unhealthy [for] a child or even adult to play.”

SSROCK is hoping to generate enough negative attention that EA will be forced to address these issues as it did with Battlefront 2 and Payback.

“Believe me, if this explodes it will have a big impact,” he said. “Look at how they reacted to the Battlefront community.”

The FixFIFA hashtag has been trending but so far, EA has not issued a response.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/72033-fixfifa-campaign-looks-boycott-ea-game-black-friday.html

 

[amstech]

If you have FIFA 15 there is no reason to get 16, 17 or 18.
If you do want to shake things up try PES 17/18, the menu system is not as polished but the gameplay is stellar.

As far as EA, boycott them.
When they start shutting down studios and people lose jobs, they will discuss micro-transactions. As much fuss as we see stirred up now, for any real difference to happen, any game with micro-transactions and loot boxes, that title must be 100% ignored for a long period of time. Boycott EA completely. All services, all games.

 

[Nero7]

Sounds like we have to do the votings for worst company again. Its quite amusing to look up their past failings as well like MoH Warfighter. Will they blame the Russians?

EA for worst company!

 

[ghostf1re]

There is no way that EA decides to backtrack on any of this. They will continue this behavior with all of the games they put out until they are forced to stop. That will not happen unless a massive amount of people stop buying the game all together. They are making a profit from the game sales alone. The money they generate from the in-game purchases are all just additional profit. The game itself has to be ignored. This means no more pre-ordering. Wait until a real review comes out. Not from a paid website, but more from the YouTube community. They seem to have a better grasp on how to properly review a game.

Lets be real though. This will never happen. Those of us adults who play games and buy them with our own hard earned money, we can stop buying them. It's the kids who have their parents buy them that probably makes up the larger demographic. They are either not informed or just really don't care because they get the game they want and don't have to pay out of their own pockets to get it.

 

[Reehahs]

What is the problem, just wait for Fifa 19!