I think that the EA Games team is both complacent and arrogant. Fair enough, they decided that the FIFA brand wasn't worth paying for. But we've lost so many international teams - and even clubs where we have some stupid substitute (with a terrible kit - like Lombardo instead of Inter Milan).
I think that they know, people will always buy the most recent version - regardless of quality - simply to get the updated squads, kits, etc.
In terms of the game itself, there is also laziness and stupidity. I have recently switched from a PS4 to a PS5 which actually made the games a little more challenging. I had been playing at World Class level on the PS4 and it was getting a bit too easy. But on the PS5, it's far more evenly matched - which is great. But there are some lazy design features. I have noticed that my team's players struggle to simply trap the ball. It always escapes them and is scooped up by the AI opponent. Of course, it confers perfect ball control on its own players. And there other things like this - passes going astray versus the AI having perfect direction. Any 50:50 challenge is always won by AI without my being to do anything about it.
I also notice that, at times, my players just head off away from the ball inexplicably - a problem which AI never has. Are the levels merely some rudimentary reduction or increase in player errors, more strategic versus random/nonsense player movements, etc? The programmers forgot about some factors where the machine always has an advantage. It feels like a set up.
The most egregious laziness though....? It appears that, each year, the programmers decide to hero a particular aspect of the game. A couple of years ago, I noticed a problematic design feature whereby any player passing the last defender was uncatchable and, hardly surprisingly, 70+% of goals scored that year were from breaks. It spoils the game because the game play ceases to be natural as everyone tries to exploit the "hole". This year, it's crosses. I have noticed that 70+% of my goals this year are from crosses. I just played a game a few minutes ago and Gakpo scored three identical headers in a row from identical crosses from Salah. So this is skewing my playing of the game as scoring is otherwise much harder.
These kinds of issues actually destroy fun.
And it's unquestioningly laziness - bad design. You'd think after producing this game for 30 years there would be some people who could do better. But they may lack the incentive and just keeping phoning it in with full confidence that people will buy anyway.
