With FIFA 23 set to release by the 27th of September of this year. One domain where most players are waiting to play the Ultimate Team game mode. Mainly, the Transfer Market where the players of the game can buy and sell cards.
FIFA 23’s biggest change to the FUT game mode is the addition of cross-platform gameplay. With these gamers of FIFA on the PS5 can for the first face of against players on the Xbox. Additionally, there is going to be a standard transfer market for all players. Due to this, unlike older FIFA games, there won’t be a difference in prices based on the console.
It had been noticed in the previous editions that the Xbox market was cheaper. This was majorly due to the comparatively lower number of gamers when compared to the PlayStation. As such similar to a stock market, the amount of revenue in the market as a whole would be lower. The change in FIFA 23 could see a massive spike in the prices of the player cards which were previously cheaper to get.
In the simplest terms, the transfer market is the marketplace where players can buy or sell cards. Being the hub for most trading to occur, one must know how this ecosystem works for in-game trade. Within FIFA each football player has a unique card which can be considered as his base card. While players are given the freedom to create their club consisting of various players. Each player can have various card types which will have an effect on their in-game stats. These special cards are usually added in cycles to have a constant influx of content for the players in the game.
Based on the rating of the player, there are 3 main types of cards. These are Gold, Silver and Bronze. Each of the following has a rating upto which they are capped at. For example, a Bronze card will have a max rating of 65 while silver will be at 72. There are another two types of cards which are rares and non-rares. In theory, the rare cards are tougher to get in-game.
As the game would be dull if there is only a definite number of cards to obtain for a year, there are seasonal or event cards available. While each player card will have a certain position allocated for it. Positions and chemistry are two domains which we will cover in a later article. For now, one must keep in mind that being in the right position and having players of the same nation, league or team will help build chemistry. Only a particular number of players gets these event cards, mostly it is 11 or 22 per event.
With these events, the cards of players can have their stats increased in one domain or more. Sometimes there are also positional changes available. This in turn helps in team building while trying to have the strongest team on the pitch to play against others. One crucial aspect to remember is that as these special cards are only available for a short time, they are indeed more rare than other base cards.
Gamers can obtain player cards by opening FIFA packs in the store. While they can do that using in-game currency known as coins or even by buying FIFA points using real-life currency. As such each pack based on the price has a certain probability to obtain a certain player card. Now looking into the transfer market, players can use this feature to obtain a specific player card. Be it the base variant or even the special cards. Within the market what a gamer can do is quite special as each player card has a different value. Similar to general economics, the concept of supply and demand play quite a vital role in the price of a player.
For the following example, we will be using a player like Lionel Messi. While being one of the best players in the world will lead him to have a higher rating than most, it will also result in the price being higher. This can be because of how good the card is as well as its rarity.
Let the average price of the base card of Lionel Messi is 100,000 for the first month of the game. In FIFA based on the players in real-life performance, there is a Team Of The Week per week. These special cards have higher stats than the based cards of the same player. If Lionel Messi in a particular week is included in the TOTW then his base card isn’t available in packs. Only his special will be packable in the packs. Due to this there can be a change in the price of the base card to increase as the supply of the base card is less and the demand would rise. Thus having a higher price than last week.
While the game mode of FIFA Ultimate Team is based on players and their cards, these cards can be looked at as stocks. Players if required can buy a certain amount of cards and have them stored in the transfer list. By doing so players can buy cards which they believe can have a higher demand later on. Due to FUT champions and the weekend league, there are a lot of packs that are rewarded to players and as such the supply for cards is massively spiked up.
In FUT due to the Squad Builder Challenges, there is a constant change in the demand for a certain card. This can be predicted for the SBC that is available every month Eg. Premier League Player Of The Month. While this is an award earned based on real-life performances. There is a special card that is always released for some time. Players need to submit the right squad to be able to unlock the special player card.
In theory, the FIFA Ultimate Team mode can help to bring another part of the gaming fan base who wanted to learn more. With the market now becoming the same for all consoles and devices only time will tell how the trends of the market will change. While understanding the basics of the FIFA transfer market before the launch of the game will be crucial for the new fans of the game as well.
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