I just don't get EA Sports FC's Ultimate Team

Being a resident of the United Kingdom and a dude as well, I have, even despite efforts to prevent this, developed an interest in football. It's incredibly hard not to, as every person you meet, every public place you visit, every time you open social media, flick on the television, turn on the car radio, et cetera, there will be some form of discussion surrounding football being crammed down your throat. Whether it's club level driven by the fact that six of the ten most valuable football teams globally compete in the most lucrative football league in the world here, in the Premier League, or the smaller, more tribal efforts that the Championship and lower English Football League divisions present, or even the national competitions where the biggest stars from around the world come together to represent the Three Lions in what is being dubbed one of our most talented generations to date. The point is, in England we live and breathe football, and it's for that reason that it never, ever surprises me that FIFA and now EA Sports FC games always find themselves at the top of sales charts in the country every week.

Even though I do firmly believe that there's something to be said about how similar and predictable EA Sports FC games have become, with minor changes and improvements made on an annual basis and then lauded as great next steps forward for this familiar franchise, I also understand that EA has basically got this sector of the video game world in a chokehold. EA Sports FC is the best simulation football experience on the market, and for EA to routinely make huge and risky changes would be to potentially sacrifice one of the most lucrative positions in video games. From a business perspective, it makes absolute sense for EA Sports FC games to remain as rigidly similar and frankly unimaginative as they've become. But from a fan perspective it baffles me that so many people get excited for this series' return every September. It never ceases to amaze me that people look at EA Sports FC games as some of the most exciting projects each year, when compelling art and mechanically diverse projects are instead treated as an afterthought. However, we're football mad in England and madness, like infatuation (which is arguably what EA Sports FC fans are experiencing), makes people do crazy things, so again, I do understand how this happens. What I really, really, really don't get though is Ultimate Team and how this mode can continue to wreak havoc on football fan's wallets every year as has been the case since its inception in 2009.

For those who are unaware, Ultimate Team is pretty much the main way that EA cashes in on microtransactions from EA Sports FC. The player is tasked with building up a squad of footballers from the ground up by collecting cards that are earned either through hefty amounts of play-time, or simply by spending real money on FC Points instead. Technically, you never need to spend a penny to enjoy Ultimate Team, but the best and rarest players are designed to be very uncommon and hard to acquire unless you splash out your cash. For a game that is basically the same product as the previous year's instalment and yet still boasts a price tag of £70, I'm already not a fan of spending more money on the game, but if that's your jam and you live and breathe EA Sports FC, have it at, it's your hard-earned pennies and you can do what you want with them.

But to continue to do this on an annual basis is, in my opinion, absolute madness. Ultimate Team does not translate between FIFA/EA Sports FC titles. Any progress you made in EA Sports FC 24 does not transfer forward to EA Sports FC 25, and likewise the same will most definitely be the case with the almost certainly titled EA Sports FC 26. You could spend £200 on FC Points throughout the lifetime of the current title, and then to reach the point you were at in the next game, you'll be expected to open your wallet once again. From a business perspective, EA has hit the jackpot, a gold mine with seemingly no end. Yet, from a fan and player point-of-view, I cannot for the life of me understand why we keep throwing cash at this mode.

There will always be comparisons here with how other AAA titans conduct themselves too, be it crazy paid skins and cosmetics in Call of Duty, League of Legends, Counter-Strike, you name it. But these games operate in a fundamentally different way in that there is either a degree of cross-title support, a marketplace to trade cosmetics with actual real-world value, or the fact that these games live for much longer than a year before becoming irrelevant. League of Legends is now in its 15th year, which for comparison would put it in line with FIFA 10. Imagine how your squad and FIFA experience would be if you have been developing a team for the past 15 years and not starting from scratch each September.

We all like to throw around silly jabs and jokes, pointing out that you could either snag a full copy of Dragon's Dogma 2 during PlayStation's Black Friday sale or instead 5,000 V-Bucks to buy two or three skins in Fortnite, but at least with Epic's battle royale you get an item that you can use for years to come and that is accessible on pretty much every platform imaginable thanks to the wide availability of the game. EA Sports FC's Ultimate Team does not offer this, which is for the time being, and likely for the far foreseeable future, it will remain to me a mystery of the highest order as to why the game mode continues to be so damn successful.