The FIFA 22 Ultimate Team transfer market has well and truly CRASHED... and we are just one month into the game cycle!
FUT cards have NEVER been this low in price so early on in the season, and it is causing quite a stir amongst the FIFA community, to say the least.
FUT market CRASHES
The FUT 22 transfer market has already hit rock bottom after just a few weeks since the game's release.
The release of the 50,000 coin Rare Player Preview Pack saw player prices drop dramatically again!
The following cards are the only ones that remain valued at over 100,00 coins (from those that were released at the start of the game cycle):
- 8 Gold Cards
- 7 FUT Hero Cards
- 10 Ones to Watch Cards
This list (not including Icons) is absolutely astounding, considering these cards have only been on the market for around four weeks.
SBC cards now REDUNDANT
Popular FIFA content creator, Nepenthez, has given his opinion on the FUT 22 transfer market via Twitter, stating that the current state of the market "poses a serious problem for the full FIFA cycle".
SBCs have become such a huge and enjoyable component of Ultimate Team over the past couple of years, but it seems there is a real issue that the market is causing in FIFA 22.
The problem with SBCs at the moment is, as Nepenthez says, there will always be a similar tradeable option on the transfer market, which can be bought and then re-sold in the future.
This means that fewer players are buying 'fodder' in order to complete the SBCs, which makes the value of high-rated cards drop.
NO point in opening packs
On top of the issue posed to SBCs, EA also has a MASSIVE issue regarding packs.
Ultimate Team has been centred around packs ever since its creation, but if everything is worth nothing, then the desire to open packs is significantly reduced.
Plus, if rewards are generally worth less, players will become less motivated to earn packs through playing game modes such as FUT Champions.
This means the overall engagement in Ultimate Team as a game mode will also drop off.
Card values set to drop even more
The FIFA community has taken to Reddit once again in order to unload their thoughts on the BIG issue that is the transfer market.
One fan says the value of Freddie Ljungberg's FUT Hero card "blows [thier] mind".
The fan then goes on to state that the market will crash even more when season rewards come out - and he's not wrong!
Once Season 1 officially ends on Wednesday, 10 November, which will also mark the start of Season 2, rewards will be released for everybody who has played Division Rivals / Squad Battles.
These rewards will mostly be untradeable, but will still impact the value of cards on the market.
This is because if somebody owns a tradeable Paul Pogba, for example, and they pack him as an untradeable version in the Season 1 rewards, they will sell the tradable version.
This could cause the higher value cards to drop by another 5-10% in price.
What can be done to fix the market?
EA can try a couple of different things in order to fix the transfer market in Ultimate Team, but nothing is guaranteed to work.
The main method that EA will most likely use is releasing quality SBCs which require high-rated cards.
For example, if EA were to release the rumoured Flashback Kylian Mbappe SBC, there's no doubt that a lot of players will be after the fodder in order to unlock the Frenchman.
This method will successfully increase the value of 'fodder', but will not impact the value of cards that are priced at over 100,000 coins.
Another method would be to reduce the supply of the high-value cards, by releasing fewer promo packs in the store or by changing the pack weight.