FC 24 hit store shelves last year and continues to sell like hotcakes. However, the annualized brand has faced quite a few controversies over the past several months, too. One scandal in  EA FC 24 Coins particular concerns accusations that an EA employee sold EA Sports FC Ultimate Team player cards to users online. FUT also sits at the center of a leak that suggests the publisher actively tries incentivizing its players to spend money on microtransactions. EA has since denied the claims.

It shouldn't be long before the publisher is ready to talk shop about FC 24 and its fall slate of releases, which will include the long-awaited reveal of Battlefield 6. News about the next Madden and NHL entries is also bound to begin rolling out in the months ahead.

After the release of some damning evidence which seemed to suggest that Electronic Arts was pushing EA Sports FC players to purchase loot boxes, the game developer has now denied that this was ever its intent. Loot boxes, particularly those found in EA titles, have been the subject of controversy for years across the gaming industry and have even been labeled as gambling in some parts of the world.

Recently exposed internal company documents allegedly indicate that the game developer's goal for the upcoming summer was to incentivize the EA Sports FC player base to focus on EA Sports FC Ultimate Team (FUT), a game mode heavily driven by loot boxes that span across multiple EA Sports titles in some form. EA has often defended its stance on the inclusion of loot boxes in its games by saying that it is just a feature and not necessarily the focus of a particular title. These recently exposed documents, however, seem to suggest that this is not at all the case behind closed doors, and now the developer appears to be scrambling to do damage control.

A report from Eurogamer highlights some of the key points EA addressed in a lengthy statement regarding the exposed documents. The developer called the initial reporting of said evidence to be a "sensationalized story with a misrepresentation of the facts" and defended itself by declaring "We do not 'push' people to spend in our games." EA further elaborated on its stance to give players "a safe and fun experience" and hoped that facts about the company would be represented more accurately going forward.

EA, understandably enough, does not seem happy with these developments. While the company no doubt has the resources for high-end legal representation, there is some language in these leaked documents that may be difficult to defend, with one particular statement standing out: "Players will be actively messaged and incentivized to convert throughout the summer." This could be further bad news for the game developer in countries where loot boxes have become legitimate legal concerns now that its stance appears so blatant.

It seems like a large portion of the gaming community suspected that this was EA's plan for loot boxes all along, but seeing it laid out in such predatory language is a little disturbing. The gaming giant's response to these leaks was expected as well and while it seems to have an uphill battle at present, things may not stay that way for long. This latest saga is just beginning for Electronic Arts, and EA Sports FC may only be a small portion of the fight to come.

Recently leaked documents allegedly expose exactly how EA drives EA Sports FC players to buy Ultimate Team loot boxes. EA Sports FC Ultimate Team (FUT) has been the target of criticism for years due to its gambling-reminiscent player card packs, with the most recent controversy coming just in March when an EA employee was caught selling rare cards.

The Ultimate Team mode made its debut in EA Sports FC 09. but it took time to become the money-printing giant it is now. Over the last few years, Ultimate Team has become more and more prominent in not just the EA Sports FC series, but Madden as well, to the ire of some fans of the latter franchise. As the mode increasingly uses questionable monetization practices that EA staunchly denies are a form of unregulated gambling, governments around the world have begun to consider or codify restrictions on these and similar loot boxes in gaming.

Internal EA documents exposed by CBC allegedly show that FUT is not going anywhere any time soon. These slides are just a few pages from a larger, 54-page 2020 document that accompanied a buy EA FC 24 Coins  insider presentation. The documents contain several bullet points that emphasize not only the importance of FUT to EA Sports FC's financial success but also how EA planned to drive players towards spending money in the mode leading up to FC 24's release.