Friend Visit Payouts
They didn't announce why they removed it. Consensus is that it wasn't working how they wanted to because of the friend glitch.
Forum Discussion
PhoenicianSn wrote:
Wasn't aware of any glitches on the payouts, but money payout glitches are not as big of a financial issue to EA compared to Donut glitches where they actually lose money. I understand a glitch is a glitch and thus poses a need to rectify the problematic code, but honestly, what difference does it matter to EA as a business when a player finds a means to cheat the cash when the cash is free to boot? Meaning, the game is free, the cash generated from the game can only get the player so far, while taking advantage of glitches netting the player Donuts actually does pose a financial threat to the Publisher.
Notwithstanding this position, I was not aware that there was a glitch on the friend payouts resulting in EA patching the code to remove the payout progression. I still would like them to bring it back though. Why not?
At the risk of sounding self-centered, I didn't really care about the effect of the glitch on EA. I don't think anyone did. I cared about how it affected *me*. The manner in which the glitch was exploited (and its effect on the game servers) was widely held to be one of the causes of the game's instability at that time.
