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FIFA 20: Disastrous weekend puts EA in the spotlight

Players were reduced to playing "rock, paper, scissors" to settle matches in a disastrous weekend for competitive FIFA beset by server troubles, cheating and with games not registering goals.
FIFA 20: Disastrous weekend puts EA in the spotlight

The state of competitive FIFA 20 was put in the spotlight this weekend after a shambolic series of events made a mockery of FUT Champions Cup Stage IV qualifiers and the very idea of the game being “esport ready”.

Coming in the weeks and days since Donovan “Tekkz” Hunt's outburst at FUT Champions Cup 4 where he said “no one enjoyed playing the game,” and perennial critic Kurt Fenech’s complete ban from all EA games and online services - the latest issues around the competitive environment for FIFA are showing the company to be amateurish and incapable of running such a popular game.

Erhan “DrEhano” Kayman of Werder Bremen esports made a summary of the problems of the weekend that included one set of players being forced to play a game of “rock, paper, scissors” to decide the outcome of the match after poor server performance meant players were unable to connect to matches.

 

 

The matching featuring, Shaun “Brandsha86” Galea and Hakan “Hasoo” Eker, was won by Hasoo.

 

 

EA released a statement about this particular incident which led some to wonder why an official EA Sports Competitive Gaming statement was written on the note function on a smartphone.

 

 

 

While others felt that with the current state of the game a game of rock paper scissors is perhaps a more exciting prospect than watching FIFA 20.

 

 

Nathan “Herozia” Gil of Team Vitality felt he was cheated out a victory when Marius “Prohunter” Franz of GamerLegion “lost connection” as Herozia was bearing down on goal with just seconds left of the match.

 

 

Prohunter disputes this, saying he disconnected but players pointed out that the way the game responds in that situation isn’t what transpired.

 

 

 

And Herozia claimed Prohunter has previous for this.

 

 

To conclude the match the two players had a penalty shoot-out that Prohunter subsequently won. Calls for EA to step in and make a statement about this have yet to garner a response.

Giuseppe Guastella of LA Galaxy was also at the mercy of poor servers, seeming to score a penalty which the game considered not a goal and subsequently getting knocked out.

 

 

According to responses to this tweet, his opponent "agreed that it was a goal and would replay pens," with another user adding the "entire qualifier discord was begging the admins to simply let them replay a pen shooutout...but there was 'nothing that could be done'".

This particular incident took a bizarre twist when Joe Buscaino, the Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 15th District, tweeted out in support of his constituent.

 

 

Politicians weren't the only ones looking for answers. Virgin Media also requested EA to get in touch.

 

 

It's not clear if a member of staff was having problems playing or they were receiving a lot of queries from their customers.

These issues are just the latest problems to plague a game that has been under fire since its launch.

Players have been vocal about a number of problems in the game ranging from poor server performance, frequent errors in the rewarding of FIFA Ultimate Team cards and growing disquiet over the pay2win nature of the esport.

The card unpacking element of the Ultimate Team has found itself the subject of lawsuits in the Netherlands, Belgium and most recently France - which likened it to a “gambling game”.