EA responds to BBC Watchdog report

EA has responded to consumer complaints about FIFA 13 which were broadcast on BBC consumer programme Watchdog.

Two consumers appeared on the programme to share the issues that they had been experiencing with the game, from crashes, invisible players and balls to purchases in Ultimate Team mode disappearing. Watchdog stated that complaints had flooded in from other gamers also facing problems.

In the letter EA defended its sports title, citing the massive sales numbers and comprehensive testing process.

"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," it said.

"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."

It also explained that fixes and improvements had to be rolled out slowly to avoid causing problems with the game's overall performance.

"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."

The publisher also invited the BBC to visit its Vancouver studio and see the FIFA team in action.