Update on the status of EA Sports World

As I addressed on Tuesday with this article, the EA Sports World site has not been functioning ever since the launch of Tiger Woods 08. This has meant that consumers who purchased the game have not been able to utilize advertised and highly promoted features such as Game Face.

I received word early on Wednesday that EA was aware of the problems (how could they not be) and that they were working to get them fixed. Despite that there was no indication of how long it could possibly take. Later in the day the following message was posted on the Tiger Woods 08 website and the EASportsWorld site (which has since been taken offline).

Due to overwhelming response, we are currently having issues with the EA Sports World website which is preventing customers to upload their photos for Photo Game Face in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 08. The feature demand has exceeded our server capacity, we are in the process on fixing this issue and expect to have the site running properly very soon. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience – we will have this problem resolved as soon as possible. In the meantime, players can start a career with a regular game face golfer and still add photo face head later. Please check back for updates.

The question becomes why they were unprepared to meet the demand on this feature when there was no question it was going to be extremely popular. There are also problems such as online lag and a bug that freezes the game in career mode that they are apparently going to address in the near future.

Shawn over @ 5WG posted an article on Wednesday evening regarding the same topic I’ve addressed in recent weeks, which is the apparent inability of EA (although 2K is guilty as well when it comes to online leagues) to have all their game’s features functioning properly on and around release day. Whether it be online lag and disconnects or the disaster that has been EASportsWorld, it is completely unacceptable to have features unavailable when people get the game home. The excuses just don’t fly and they are irrelevant to the consumer who purchased in good faith expecting what was promised to be delivered.