EA Sports Completely Misses Mark in FC 24 TOTY 86+ Leagues SBC Statement

EA Sports issued a statement via its FC Direct Communications social media account on Feb. 1 after the latest controversy surrounding FC 24 Ultimate Team.

On Jan. 30, EA Sports added an SBC to FC 24 Ultimate Team during the Team of the Year promotion. That SBC, titled "TOTY 86+ Leagues," granted players a 1 of 3 Player Pick containing 86 rated items or higher from leagues featured in TOTY. As players began opening their Player Picks, there was an unordinary amount of TOTY Lionel Messi items appearing. Word began to spread, players flocked to complete the SBC to see if they were lucky as well.

EA Sports went on to disable the SBC and announce on the very same X account that the SBC has been taken down because of an issue. Players were furious because of how frequently Messi was appearing, so if they didn't get a chance to open it they were out of luck.

The community demanded "Free Messi" compensation after a chunk of players were granted arguably the best item in the game. EA Sports released a statement on Feb. 1 discussing what happened and what next steps are being taken.

EA Sports Completely Misses Mark in FC 24 TOTY 86+ Leagues SBC Statement

Here is EA Sports' timeline of events, per its update:

• A SBC was released on 30th January at 10 am PST with an 86+ OVR untradeable reward from one of the 13 leagues that featured at least one TOTY Player Item.
• Two of those leagues had only one Item matching the 86+ OVR threshold (Rest Of World and MLS).
• The SBC was live for 24 minutes, prior to its removal following the identification of a design issue.
• In that time frame an estimated 0.7% of Ultimate team players obtained a TOTY Messi item.

EA Sports apologized and thanked players for their patience. According to the developer, it has explored several scenarios for how to proceed to preserve long term game health and restore community morale. Here's what EA Sports decided on:

• Players who completed this SBC while it was available will keep their rewards  
• The SBC will not be returning as originally designed

So, for those keeping score, the bare minimum and you're 'SOL' if you didn't get Messi. Now, of course plenty of players opened the SBC and didn't get Messi, but for an alleged and estimated 0.7% of players to get Messi during a promotion that already hasn't earned EA Sports any flowers, this completely misses the mark.

EA Sports closed its statement by saying the FC team will continue to examine processes to minimize issues in the future. Well, the community knows that the next FC 24 bug, error, glitch and mess up is just around the corner. This response might just be the nail in the coffin for a good chunk of the player base this year.