Has EA just broken Fifa Ultimate Team?

Fans are up in arms after Fifa bosses turned off the popular Ultimate Team auction system and replaced it with price tiers for every item in the game

There is trouble on the virtual terraces of the best-selling Fifa video game series. Fans have reacted with fury to changes announced by developer EA Sports, which will radically alter the game's popular Ultimate Team feature.

For many, the eBay-style open-auction transfer market that underpinned the mode's gameplay - which involves building a "deck" of player trading cards into a fantasy team - was one of its biggest pulls. Bagging an in-form player at a bargain price, usually by purchasing their card at 2am when fewer participants are online, led to moments of punch-the-air euphoria. With some Harry-Redknapp-style wheeler and dealing the purchase could be immediately flipped back onto the market with a higher starting price - a much faster way of acquiring in-game currency than actually playing matches. And the faster you made coins, the quicker the world's best players could be secured for your fantasy line-up.

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