EA FC 24 mistakenly gave out better rewards than intended in Ultimate Team Champions. Instead of leaving the glitch alone for all players to take advantage of, the devs corrected the error, sparking outrage from community members and a failed boycott.
The Ultimate Team finals are open for 72 hours every weekend, from Friday to Monday. Once qualifying, players earn rewards based on how many matches they win out of 20. Those lucky players who completed their matches within the first few hours had a higher percentage chance of earning high overall Team of the Season players such as 97 overall Kylian Mbappe or 96 overall Ousmane Dembele.
At around 10 p.m. EST on Friday, EA confirmed that a correction was made to an issue with Champions Player Pick rewards “providing unintended results.” The post on X has over eight million views and, currently, just under 7,000 comments of players slamming the decision.
EA FC 24 content creator Nepenthez responded, “You have to be joking. Leave it as it was, everyone was happy. Mad, legit mad that you ‘intend’ to shaft people for playing your competitive game mode.” Fellow streamer RunTheFutMarket went one step further and attempted to launch a boycott of the title. On May 11, one day after the rewards fiasco, RunTheFutMarket challenged other content creators to stop posting FC 24 videos and streams and play other titles instead.
“If everyone wanted to come together and collectively stop streaming and posting EA FC 24, I would, and I mean it,” RunTheFutMarket claimed. However, the proposed boycott didn’t go as planned, as other content creators who allegedly supported the idea were criticized. So on May 12, RunTheFutMarket stood by his beliefs but apologized for misreading the room and upsetting viewers, streamers, and other creators.
“I tried to step up to the plate and unite the community and failed miserably. Have woken up to so many DM’s about how upset and annoyed people are at the situation. I thought presenting an opportunity for everyone to stop playing collectively could really make some damage in resolving some of our continuous and worsening issues.”
Despite failing to get everyone on the same page, it’s clear that a large segment of the player base is growing frustrated with EA and its handling of EA FC 24. Looking back at another example, An 86-plus overall player pick SBC in EA FC 24 unintentionally gifted a 97 overall Team of The Year Lionel Messi card for around 40 minutes before getting fixed. Instead of taking away the cards or finding another solution, EA let the lucky players keep their Messi cards, which didn’t go over well.
In addition, EA continues to push the boundaries of its monetization by releasing increasingly expensive packs in the store. The boycott failed this time around, but the seeds of dissent have already been planted.
