This is big news for the pair, as Douglas and Rigby had been holding fast and pleading not guilty up until this point, but as more and more evidence mounted against them, it appears they have decided to admit their wrong-doing now rather than still trying to save face. Essentially, website have appeared that allow players to EA FC 24 Coins buy and sell their EA Sports FC coins - the series' in-game currency - and NepentheZ used his channel to promote a website that then accepted these coins as currency to gamble on real world soccer games.
The problem? It turns out running gambling websites requires a license, and NepentheZ and business partner Rigby never bothered to acquire one. On top of that, NepentheZ actively promoted his website on his channel without ever disclosing to his viewers that he was the owner, which amounts to an advertising illegal gambling charge as well. It may seem strange to see someone risk so much on letting people gamble with in-game currency, but the world of EA Sports FC is so lucrative that a professional soccer player quit his job to pursue EA Sports FC streaming full-time, so there was a lot of money to be gained for NepentheZ and Rigby in the venture.
Both men have yet to be sentenced, but have been fined over $100.000 USD for their part in the illegal activity. Gambling has become something of an issue of late in the world of online gaming, with CS: GO's gambling problem looming large over the esports industry, and games like Starcraft 2 still struggling with match-fixing problems. It appears that the era of the wild west of esports gambling is slowly coming to a close, but there will likely be more high profile legal suits to come before it reaches its end.
One reason often cited when people ask why the Wii U was a sales failure is the console's lack of third-party support. As a result, Nintendo has been aggressive about pursuing third-party support for the Nintendo Switch, securing deals with over 70 developers to develop games for its new console and bring big name third-party franchises to the device. Among the major third-party games in store for the Nintendo Switch is the top-selling soccer series EA Sports FC, and we now know that EA Sports FC for the Switch will be built from the ground-up for the console.
Speaking to GameReactor at a EA Sports FC event in Paris, EA Sports CCO Peter Moore revealed that FC 24 for the Switch will be "custom-built" for Nintendo's handheld/home console hybrid. Some are worried that this means FC 24 on the Switch won't be quite as fully-featured as its PS4 and Xbox One counterparts, as we saw with many EA Sports Wii titles, but that remains to be seen.
"Well, as we have said, we are custom-building a EA Sports FC version for the Nintendo Switch. It will be FC 24. and it will obviously be later this year when FC 24 comes out."
Based on Moore's comments, it seems as though FIFA 24 Coins on the Switch won't be a last-gen port of the game as previously rumored. This is good news, but we still have yet to see the game in action beyond brief snippets in commercials, so it's still possible that it will have inferior graphics or a less elaborate suite of online features compared to other versions of the game.
