For starters I am against annual releases of AAA video games. In order to keep up with the demands of releasing a new game every year, it puts terrible demands on the developers working on the game. These harsh demands force the brutal overtime EA is infamous for putting its employees through where they can work up a hundred hours a week, and at least half of that is unpaid overtime.
EA also loves to cut corners with its sports games. They have gotten to the point nobody can really think of anything knew to add them, the games just have the balance among teams adjusted in order to make sure it isn’t the exact same video game.
Well I lie, there is something knew we have seen from the FIFA games in recent years; they became pay to win games. FIFA is hugely popular in Europe so EA loads the games with microtransactions, specifically loot boxes where you pay real money and get reward at random. It’s unregistered gambling and minors who play games with loot boxes are known go onto to develop gambling problems later in life. In fact the UK had a recent study where it was shown playing games with loot boxes actually caused a very large and very noticeable rise in under aged gambling.
On principle I also hate FIFA and EA’s other sports games for the safety net they provide the company. EA has done any number of dumb decisions in the past that at glance look like they should hurt them financially, but nothing ever seems to happen to them because they have the base provided by the sports games. To give you an idea, while EA’s stocks took a drop in 2017 thanks to the controversy from Battlefront II. Thanks to their sports games their stocks bounced right back and EA returned to a position where they were better off than they were at the start of the year.
EA’s FIFA games are a blight on the industry and the series must be done away with.