@rjwil73 I guess the issue is more complex than blaming EA for accepting these coin sellers / YouTubers because they "spend thousands on packs". if these coin sellers would spend thousands on packs, how are they able to sell coins? my guess (and everything below is just my guess as a player!) is that they create tons of accounts and either play H2H games themselves (because you can make tons of coins playing H2H Seasons if you are good enough) or use some kind of algorithms (e.g. just starting games automatically and doing one and the same play all the time as described here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/COIN-FARMING-BOTS/m-p/10090263#M10811).
I'd guess there are a lot of "players" in the world who are good enough 1) at programming and 2) at hide their position on the internet. if such a "player" is unscrupulous enough to use his/her skills to cheat others (incl. EA), then this is exactly what happens: they advertise a seemingly cheap offer, sell there coins they made with one of their accounts as soon as the account has cumulated enough coins while accepting that this account is banned right after a successful sale. since there exist ways to disguise your exact location (e.g. by using dynamic IP-adresses), I'd guess it is very difficult to identify these "cheaters'" accounts ex-ante, i.e. before they sell their coins. and I also guess, that if you are good enough to create such algorithms, you are most likely also able to run a lot of them in parallel allowing you to make a lot of coins just by "playing" (or more exactly by letting your algorithms play for you) .... and most likely, these cheaters also use other algorithms to sell their items in the auction house collecting even more coins (why else are players reporting that they got banned using the companion app? because there are some "players" exploiting APIs to run their in-game auctions automated. and since EA tries to deal with these algorithms, collateral damage is caused resulting in bans of innocent players who have been wrongly identified by EA's automatic search for cheaters ...)
so, what is the best strategy to deal with these "cheaters"? what would you do to stop them, if you were working for EA? it is really a tricky question, in particular if considering that these "cheaters" are most likely very creative to find new approaches to cheat if their previous approach was prevented by reactive EA measures (I'd guess the problem is very similar to the issue of doping in sports in general: as soon as a test method has been developed to detect prohibited doping, new methods and substances are found...). my guess is, that EA's approach to handle the issue of coin sellers is quite similar to how WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) also proceeds: identify those actors who have cheated and lock them out.
but how to identify them? the WADA identifies cheaters 1) by applying tests whether an athlete has used a prohibited substance or procedure (this is quite similar to algorithms used by EA to identify suspicious transactions in MUT) or 2) by identifying athletes who had close contacts to doping networks (which is most likely also an approach by EA: identify players who bought or sold items from or to these coin selling accounts). I'd therefore guess, EA is constantly banning the accounts of coin sellers (and players who bought or sold items from or to these accounts). but since these coin sellers most likely create new accounts (as described above) it is probably only symptom control: banning one account while know the same cheater creates a new account.... since there are so many auctions in MUT (the player base is huge!), the collateral damage of banning innocent players is most likely unavoidable. if you as a player were unlucky and sold or bought one or more items to a banned account, you might got banned without knowing why.
I've read that there are a lot of bans occuring in MUT and EA's department responsible for manually checking disputed bans is most likely drowning in work by the sheer volume of complains about (un)justified bans. that's why it takes so long to get unbanned if your ban was unjustified...
before I summarise my thoughts: all I've wrote here is just my guess how I would explain why coin selling is such a big issue in MUT while EA still has not been able to solve it (and as I tried to explain: although WADA invests a lot of money and ressources and developed and uses a broad range of testing procedures as well as criminal investigations is not able to rule out doping in sports either). but now summarising:
- from my perspective, coin selling is very difficult to prevent ex-ante.
- "good/creative" coin sellers are most likely able to use multiple accounts to accumulate coins while they can also disguise their location on the Internet
- EA's response is therefore only reactive ("symtoms control") and is not able to really ban cheaters (although they continously ban their accounts).
- the collateral damage are tons of (innocently) banned players who either did not know that coin selling/buying is not allowed or have been wrongly identified (and banned) by EA's algorithms.
one more question I think is relevant here: why are there so many youtube videos (etc.) promoting coin selling although it is not allowed? my guess to answer this question: EA does not own Youtube and therefore cannot directly control what is uploaded there. I'm convinced there are a lot of other platforms where coin sellers promote their offers. from my perspective, the only solution for this issue might be a contractual agreement between EA and Youtube to ban all videos promoting coin selling in MUT. I think it should be feasible if EA was willing to pay for it. but what would happen next? the coin sellers will place their offers on other platforms. of course, EA could very likely also find contracts with these platforms to remove these offers. the more of these platforms are excluded, the greater the likelihood that innocent players will not become aware of these offers. if the range of "solved" platforms is broad enough, the "coin selling" problem would not be nearly as big as it is right now. comparing to the activities of WADA, the ban on any advertising of prohibited substances and procedures most likely reduces the amount of "cheaters" to those who are actively searching for prohibited measures. if I were responsible for fighting these scams, I would focus on depriving the scammers of the basis on which they can advertise their offers. but unfortunately, I'm just a player ...
as a sidenote: I wrote my thoughts here to provide an explanation why coin selling is such a big issue while a lot of players complain that they have been wrongfully banned. it was not a priority for me to defend EA. anyways, if my attempt to offer an explanation helps one or the other unjustly banned player to feel at least a little less angry about this injustice, then it's perfectly fine with me. but frankly, I do not like the basic business model MUT is based on. I don't like that pure luck makes such a big difference in the contents of purchased packs. I do not like it that it is so obvious how EA tries to find new ways to motivate players to buy even more packs (the worst example are LTD items...) while on the one hand, the content of so many packs is just "garbage" to be sold for training, and on the other hand so many items you can earn by playing (incl collectibles) are not tradeable with other players. that there are so many NAT items completely contradicts how I envision a game that is about building and improving a team by playing, collecting, trading and buying. although I really like the basic idea of MUT (collecting and improving my lineup and playing a football game), I'm not willing to invest cash for packs (not at all!) and also only bought the very basic version of Madden 21 (because I wanted to start from the very beginning and every additional packs or player items I would have got investing more cash would have reduced the amount of available improvements of my lineup)...
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Positive Play - Feel the emotions, but be aware what they are telling you!
Joy: you like it! Anger: you don't like it! Frustration: you don't like it but cannot do
anything against it! Aggression: you don't like it and want to break something.
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Tell everybody (@joy), give constructive feedback (@anger),
ask for help (frustration), and have a break (@aggression)!
I try to help out other players, but I'm not an EA employee
