EA promises to honor pricing mistake after $60 game sells for $0.06

[midian182]

Facepalm: Electronic Arts doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to being a consumer-friendly company, but it seems the gaming giant isn't entirely averse to doing the right thing. After some pre-orders for FIFA 23 mistakenly sold for the equivalent of $0.06, EA has promised to honor the purchases for a game that should have cost $60.

The upcoming FIFA 23 will be the last game by EA to carry the name of the sport's governing body—next year's entry will be called EA Sports FC. Pre-orders recently became available in India on the Epic Games Store for 4.80 Indian rupees (INR), which works out at $0.06, so it's easy to imagine plenty of gamers took advantage of this pricing.

FIFA 23 is meant to be priced at 3,499 INR in India, or just over $44, meaning buyers got an impressive 99.86% off. But this wasn't the standard version of FIFA 23; it was the Ultimate Edition that costs 4,799 INR, or $60.43, pushing the unintended discount up to 99.9%.

That ridiculously low price was, of course, a mistake on someone's part. We've seen previous examples of companies failing to honor erroneous pricing when it's so obviously been incorrect. It seems Electronic Arts didn't want the bad publicity and has sent out emails (via sportskeeda) confirming the lucky ones who grabbed FIFA 23 Ultimate Edition at this price will get to keep the game for the amount they paid when it launches.

"A few weeks back, we scored a pretty spectacular own-goal when we inadvertently offered FIFA 23 pre-purchase on the Epic Games Store at an incorrect price," EA wrote in the email, which has the Epic Games logo. "It was our mistake, and we wanted to let you know that we'll be honoring all pre-purchases made at that price."

It's unclear exactly who was at fault for the mistake, but it sounds like EA is taking the blame rather than Epic. Still, it's still good to see the companies actually honoring this price, especially as there's controversy over FIFA 23's PC version costing the same $70 (or $90 for the Ultimate Edition) in the US as its console counterpart.

This year's PC game is said to have feature parity with the PS5/XBSX versions, marking a change from FIFA 21 and FIFA 22, which on PC were "Legacy Editions" ported from PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

FIFA 23 releases on September 30.

Thanks, PC Gamer

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95649-ea-promises-honor-pricing-mistake-after-60-game.html

 

[SirDigby]

I'm pretty surprised by this from EA, I don't think anyone would've blamed them for refunding the 4.8 rupees, it was very much too good to be true and like the article says, EA doesn't have a record of being pro-consumer....
On the other hand, why would EA do this? Do they seriously believe this one gesture will suddenly undo their massive reputation as the d**chebag company of gaming, unless is the start of some big corporate u-turn?

 

[ThrakazogZ]

I'm pretty surprised by this from EA, I don't think anyone would've blamed them for refunding the 4.8 rupees, it was very much too good to be true and like the article says, EA doesn't have a record of being pro-consumer....
On the other hand, why would EA do this? Do they seriously believe this one gesture will suddenly undo their massive reputation as the d**chebag company of gaming, unless is the start of some big corporate u-turn?

The only reason they did this was because the bulk of their profits in the game come from loot boxes. The purchase price is just icing on the cake for EA. If they didn't make a billion US every 3 months on FIFA loot boxes, they would have snatched those mis-priced games from people in a heartbeat. Then, to top it off, they would have offered those people a 6 cent voucher that was only good toward the repurchase of the game.

 

[Kam7r]

I'm pretty surprised by this from EA, I don't think anyone would've blamed them for refunding the 4.8 rupees, it was very much too good to be true and like the article says, EA doesn't have a record of being pro-consumer....
On the other hand, why would EA do this? Do they seriously believe this one gesture will suddenly undo their massive reputation as the d**chebag company of gaming, unless is the start of some big corporate u-turn?

they don't care about the base game, since a huge part of their money come from the integrated Gacha named: Fifa Ultimate Team ...

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

So $44 in Indian and $70 in the US for the same game. Lovely. I gave up on Madden and Fifa about 8 years ago. After the first three months the game drops to $50 and then $30 and then free lol.

 

[ZedRM]

I'm pretty surprised by this from EA, I don't think anyone would've blamed them for refunding the 4.8 rupees, it was very much too good to be true and like the article says, EA doesn't have a record of being pro-consumer....
On the other hand, why would EA do this? Do they seriously believe this one gesture will suddenly undo their massive reputation as the d**chebag company of gaming, unless is the start of some big corporate u-turn?

They might have finally realized that they need to appeal to the consumer instead of treating everyone like numbers and money tickets.. Who knows..

 

[ZedRM]

So $44 in Indian and $70 in the US for the same game. Lovely. I gave up on Madden and Fifa about 8 years ago. After the first three months the game drops to $50 and then $30 and then free lol.

$44 is for the standard version. $60 is for the ultimate version. Please actually READ the article for proper context.