Ultimate Team is a style that appears across EA's package of Madden 21 coins licensed sports games. It mixes elements of fantasy sports-style team management with the deck-building of a classic card game. The loot box element comes from packs that players can buy to boost their teams. Those microtransactions create Ultimate Team the most lucrative mode in EA's sports games.

On the 1 hand, it's easy to write this off for anybody without skin in the sport. If somebody's already spending tens of thousands of dollars opening packs, why shouldn't they go right to the source and get the players that they want? However, for the players that are busy in Ultimate Team, it feels like a betrayal. As Nick put it,"We grind/trade/open packs and can not touch these PIM players, but EA workers sell them to individuals secretly for $1,700?!?!" It generates an even wider gap between the haves and have-nots in the sport, without even the veneer of players getting high-rated players through skill.

EA acknowledged this in their reaction to the allegations. They blamed it on either compromised accounts or EA employees going into business for themselves. EA announced an investigation into the misconduct, promising to take action against any players and employees caught participate in the supreme Team black market. Though they did not define what action could be taken against workers engaged in the scandal, players will be banned indefinitely.

The offending players won't have much of a leg to stand on when they're prohibited. Beyond exactly what it does into the game's ethics, it's a violation of EA's User Agreement. The banned players will join an exclusive club that no player would want to be part of.

EA has also ended the practice of rewarding optional items forever. It was a way for VIPs like pro soccer players, EA employees and celebrity spouses to receive Ultimate Team content automatically without unlocking it. They clarify that this deal did not extend to"professional Gaming influencers" in an attempt to dispel the notion that mmoexp scam EA was providing streamers with enviable Ultimate Team players around the sly.