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EA responds to FIFA 13 criticisms

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Dela @ Nov 02, 2012 00:40 | 21 comments

EA insists it is addressing concerns.

The BBC's Watchdog program and website report on instances where consumers have complained about a product or service. Watchdog turned its eyes on EA Sports, after receiving a flurry of complaints from gamers who were having very bad experiences trying to play FIFA 13.

The title has already sold four million copies since it launched in September, and Watchdog had reported on some complaints about glitches and freezing that popped up within days.

Some complaints spoke of invisible players on the field of play, and crashes that result in a system freezing up - both claims I have personally witnessed, incidentally.

Watchdog reported on FIFA 13 again after it felt EA had not responded adequately to the problems. Its report told the story of one 14 year old kid, Semir from Suffolk, who spent £20 on FIFA points to acquire gold packs in the game, in order to obtain better players in "Ultimate Team." One day after he spent his money on them, they disappeared.

EA has responded to Watchdog with a letter, which is pasted in its entirety below.

"FIFA 13 has been the most successful launch of a sports videogame in history and the biggest videogame launch of 2012 to date. The game sold more than 4.5 million copies in its first week around the world, including more than 1 million copies in the UK alone. Since its launch in late September, it has been the top selling videogame in the UK. Just as important, the game has been universally praised for its quality and innovation, as evidenced by the volume of positive reviews from the leading media and gaming outlets in the UK. For many years, FIFA has been recognised as not only the biggest sports game on the planet, but as the videogame franchise that sets the benchmark for quality, innovation, and connected online services.

The quality of the FIFA game is delivered by one of the most experienced and passionate development teams in the industry. In addition, our game goes through a rigorous, year-long testing process that logs thousands upon thousands of hours of evaluation to ensure a high quality experience at launch and all season long.

Our fans have engaged with FIFA 13 in record numbers. On any given day, more than 1 million online game sessions of FIFA are played by our fans in the UK. But as with any product or online service with such a high level of traffic and popularity, there will be some circumstances where fans experience challenges or issues. And as with any online service, our game is also dependent on many other factors, such as online access and availability at the customer's location, to ensure the best experience.

We are constantly listening to our fans and asking for their feedback to help us identify issues and assist us in prioritising the improvements to our game. We do this via our social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, our FIFA online forums, and our Customer Experience team. We encourage all our fans to follow us on Twitter or Like our Facebook page so that they get the most up-to-date information. We provide transparent and frequent updates to our fans via these channels, such as this item from last week which provides extensive detail about the improvements and fixes we are delivering for FIFA 13:

http://www.ea.com/soccer/news/fifa-13-title-update-01

In summary, we have already delivered improvements to FIFA 13 to address issues in online connectivity, addressed key issues in game modes like Career Mode and FIFA Ultimate Team, and are actively addressing customer issues related to transactions in the game that have not been executed properly, such as missing coins or FIFA Ultimate Team items. Since we released a major update to the game on October 19, we've seen reported game crashes and other issues drop by more than half.

We have received reports from our fans of rare occurrences where the ball in the game does not appear. Our team continues to investigate these rare events and we will communicate directly with our fans once we have more information.

Our commitment is to not only address issues and necessary fixes to improve the FIFA experience as quickly and effectively as possible, but deliver new services and new content all season long. The process of improving the game experience for our fans is a constant one, and our team continues to work on additional improvements that we will implement and communicate in the coming days and weeks ahead. We know that we have significantly improved the FIFA experience for our fans in recent days, and we fully expect that to continue as we develop and implement additional improvements and fixes.

We understand that some fans may wonder why we can't fix all the known issues at once. That's a fair question and the answer isn't quite as simple. We are delivering improvements and fixes in such a way to ensure the millions of people playing FIFA 13 do not experience undue or overly lengthy network/server outages, that title updates and other improvements are done to a high quality, and that we're confident the changes will improve the FIFA 13 experience for everyone.

We look at all enquiries an individual basis and are investigating the two cases you have brought to our attention, and will be in contact with them directly. Once again, thank you for the opportunity to provide this above information, and we welcome Watchdog to come over to the studio in Vancouver to see all the processes and procedures in place to ensure we're delivering the best game possible for consumers. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any clarification."

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Comments

Comment by: Anonymous User (Nov 02, 2012 04:18)

Dear EA. the particular issue in Career Mode freezing has been going on since the game was released. this past week i can no longer play my career mode because the game freezes at the same spot every time. I think its clear that you released a beta version of FIFA 13 and just labeled at as your final product. some pretty disgusting moves to pull. but in the end you are EA....

Comment by: Anonymous User (Nov 02, 2012 16:41)

Ridiculous! It didnt take me 1000 hours to find out the game didnt work! Really?
Now you sold 4 mil copies and let 4 mil people down!

Comment by: megadunderhead (Nov 03, 2012 06:57)

Funny the psp version was hacked cracked able to get online without any issues the console versions freeze crash and are worthless good job EA

Comment by: xBEERx (Nov 04, 2012 13:51)

I've had trouble with the PC version of BF3. Many others have also. It's the last EA game I'll buy. I thought about getting a FIFA game, guess I won't.

I feel sorry for people who don't drink, when they get up in the morning that's as good as their going to feel all day.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Nov 05, 2012 15:22)

This is ridiculous!!! I cant buy a single player for my team without it freezing my xbox, takes the P**s! Your update has had little effect on my game as it still freezes

Comment by: SJN1976 (Nov 08, 2012 17:51)

Ok, so just because EA have sold 4.5million copies of the game in the first week alone that means there is no problem? Idiots, I had trouble with Crysis 2 and the Dedication achievement not unlocking and you didn't want to know about that either. I sometimes wonder why you have a 'technical' team or is it just for PC types only? To hell with Xbox 360 and PS3 owners??

Steve

Comment by: LeeC22 (Nov 08, 2012 23:23)

Quote:
In addition, our game goes through a rigorous, year-long testing process

That's pretty impressive for a game that is annually updated. A year to write plus a year to test, yet they fit all that into 12 months. Does that mean EA have patented time compression?

It also doesn't matter how long it's tested for, if the testers are incompetent fools, being told to "ignore bugs that can be fixed after launch", by incompetent management. I spent 26 years watching the idiots rise to the top of the pond, and turn everything below into a sludge of ignorance and arrogance.

I said years ago, that it was about time developers and publishers were held accountable, for the contemptuous attitude they have towards paying customers. If they insist on releasing half finished products, that they think they can fix at their leisure, then they should be made to compensate buyers.

Half the time, they'll just say "we'll fix it next year, in the next version". How many other industries would get away with that philosophy? I think this is fantastic action by Watchdog, let's hope this sets a precedent for things to come.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Dec 14, 2012 10:07)

my greif is u buy the gamae the gold packs to improve your game ,then a (fan) comes alont with the worst team in the world an beats u , also lagswitching cheats they have the ball game runs ok u get the ball the game stops starts and judders when u confront theese cheats they just laugh at you , and its annoying how ultimate team is always offline.

Comment by: Estuansis (Dec 14, 2012 14:18)

EA is a poison to gaming. Their business practices and pressuring the devs to meet unrealistic deadlines means lower quality games, period.

AMD Phenom II 955BE, CoolIt Eco 120 ALC 2 x Scythe S-Flex 1600RPM Push/Pull intake, Gigabyte GA-890XA-UD3, 8GB(2 x 4GB) G.Skill RipJaws DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-24, 2 x XFX HD6850 1GB Crossfire(OC 775/1000->900/1100), Cooler Master HAF 932 AMD Dragon Custom, Corsair 620HX, Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP 1920 x 1200 24" LCD/Asus VH242H 1920 x 1080 23.6" LCD

Comment by: Anonymous User (Dec 17, 2012 17:44)

Hi Fifa and Ea,
For some reason, on my fifa 13, when I have done an achievement such as "Bronzed", the achivement for starters doesn't come up with it completed and I cannot seem to be able to get the achievemnt points after completing an achievement.
I know i have done the achievement due to completing all the bronze stages of skill games as well as other achievements and also watching others get their points from doing the same achievement.
why is this and how can i get the achievement points??

Comment by: Anonymous User (Jan 07, 2013 00:07)

First of all there needs to be more international like why isn't there Japan or Iraq there both the best soccer teams of Asia this needs to improve add lots of teams like in fifa 10 World Cup

Comment by: ddp (Jan 07, 2013 02:11)

Please read, iraq is not part of asia.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Jan 11, 2013 15:27)

The fifa gold pack are so not worth the money u spend I have spent £500 and had a load of crap from them the game is a rip off!!

Comment by: aaatrikks (Jan 12, 2013 09:30)

why does my goal keeper let in every single goal when he has an overall of 84 when a bronze keeper at the other end saves every shot i take with my all gold team i need an awnser.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Jan 19, 2013 00:48)

I can't advance on my career because it crashes when I try to sign a player! Help!

Comment by: Anonymous User (Jan 29, 2013 17:26)

Fifa 13 has to many problems.
the defending is terrible, its to easy to get past defenders and really hard to dispossess their attack! half the time my pass goes to the wrong player or straight to my opponent and when im attacking, even though i direct it its like they enjoy giving it to the CB at the half way line and its really frustrating because of the number of goals i concede due to this! Also its like they focused on the attacking aspect of the game and forgot about the defending. And why does it keep disconnecting me from the servers? And why does my career mode keep freezing at the same point?! When this happens i have to restart my ps3 and it says my ps3 wasn't turned off properly so it has to check and restore my file system.. everytime! seriously did you just throw an unfished game on the shelves? this game cost me 50 pound (plus what i've spent on ultimate team packs) and its defiantly not worth it. im tempted to try PES but how do i know there developers aren't money grabbing c***s aswell with a way below par game. i've bought every fifa game since 2000 and fifa 13 has wound me up the most. fuck you EA i won't be buying anymore of your games.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Feb 11, 2013 04:08)

Originally posted by ddp:
Please read, iraq is not part of asia.

ummm so which continent would it be part of then? is the middle east on some other planet or some continent ive never heard of? how about iraq is just as asian as the chinese. the israelis too. asia is a BIG place. big big big.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Feb 14, 2013 18:11)

I WAS SCAMED BY E A THEY TOOK NEYMAR AND FALCO FROM ME AND 100,OOO COINS

Comment by: Anonymous User (Feb 18, 2013 15:51)

Absolutely hate Fifa 13. I've just completely wasted my money on this. The menus are ridiculous to navigate and my favourite part of the game has been removed whereby I can use my virtual pro offline in Manager Career mode. Why!?? ...So I thought I'd try to use my Virtual Pro in Player Career and I get subbed after 50 minutes and have no say in anything. Great one EA, ever heard of the saying don't fix what isn't broken?
I haven't really played the actual game that much yet, but from what I have played, it feels like I'm controlling Bambi on ice and it's ridiculous trying to regain possession when it's been lost. Genuinely angry with this, I have loved Fifa since 09, but this one is just awful.

Comment by: Anonymous User (Feb 23, 2013 18:59)

Okay, it's time to go back to PES 2013

Comment by: Anonymous User (Mar 27, 2013 18:10)

The kid probably followed those free coins scams and got his players taken away. He was intending to hack the game by receiving free coins and they got him back. It's wrong for them to quick sell all his players but he shouldn't have been trying to hack in the first place.