7 Popular Video Games That Ruined Everything

5. FIFA (Ultimate Team)

The game and mode combo that completely changed EA's lookout on the industry, and makes the Lord of the Rings, Simpsons and James Bond-era of the 2000s look like a spec in the rear-view mirror.

FIFA's Ultimate Team would become the mode EA would try to cram into everything.

Starting back on UEFA Champion's League before moving into FIFA at the start of the 2010s, Ultimate Team's reach, microtransactions and football celebrity star power resulted in astronomical sales figures.

The sorts of sales figures any executive literally just watching the numbers go up would then try to apply to everything, and in EA's case that meant the Star Wars IP.

With former Legacy of Kain and Uncharted creator Amy Hennig being told her idea for a Star Wars game needed an Ultimate Team-style game mechanic, it came alongside Star Wars Battlefront 2 being utterly riddled with RNG and exploitative money grinds. Hennig promptly left EA and we managed to get ONE decent single-player Star Wars title - Jedi Fallen Order - in the entire EA run.

Meanwhile, four full game ideas were scrapped as the utterly forgettable Battlefield Hardline had EA taking developers away from in-progress single player stories, to get a game with microtransactions and lootboxes over the finish line.

Today, EA seem to have learnt their lesson and the likes of Knockout City, Josef Fares' work and Skate's revival show the worst of it has passed, but there's no way in hell they're abandoning this framework for good.