EA Sports were forced to withdraw an Ultimate Team Squad Building Challenge (SBC) from FIFA 20 after realizing they had made a major error, making POTM Ben Yedder a much easier acquisition than intended.
The Player of the Month edition of AS Monaco’s star striker – rated 88 thanks to his recent performances for the French Ligue 1 side – was only available for around half an hour after release, before EA quickly realized what was going on.
Nevertheless, many players managed to take advantage of the SBC in the short time it stayed up, giving them a highly-rated player for just a fraction of the price.
The SBC had five separate squads needed to complete, each with a variety of requirements based on overall team rating, chemistry, nationality, and even in-form players.
Each squad traded in rewarded the player with a new pack of varying rarity, and one of these was a squad with an overall team rating of 86 (among other things) that rewards the player with a Rare Electrum Players Pack.
However, there was a bug with this particular requirement, meaning the team only needed to be rated 80 – making it a considerably easier squad to build. In no time, thousands of Ultimate Team players had started to get rid of their 80-rated players in exchange for a significantly better reward.
Hey folks, the Ligue 1 POTM SBC had incorrect requirements set, and we have taken it down. The SBC will return with the correct requirements at a later time.
For those who have partially completed it, we're looking into it and will post an update here when we can.
— EA SPORTS FC Direct Communication (@EASFCDirect) January 23, 2020
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Of course, as soon as EA realized their issue, the SBC was taken down and they sought to immediately fix it.
They confirmed that any players who had completed some aspects of the SBC but not the full thing will receive compensation for losing their players, with the aim being to simply return items back to players who lost them.
On the other hand, many players will be delighted to have bolstered their squads and been lucky enough to complete the SBC on time, saving a lot of coins as well as relishing the rewards given to them.
You can be assured, though, that EA will be extra cautious for their next big SBC, and will double-check every single requirement to make sure it’s in-line with what they actually want.
In the meantime, it appears EA Sports want to get the Ben Yedder SBC up-and-running again, so that should be back up before long.