EA’s online systems that handled online play, matchmaking and login was briefly offline for two hours today. EA did not elaborate on the issue but was able to resolve it quickly.
Our systems that handle online gameplay, matchmaking, and login are offline for all of our titles. Updates here: http://t.co/Yp8c04kQag ^EB
— EA Support (@AskEASupport) November 13, 2013
Our systems that handle online gameplay, matchmaking, and login are now back online. ^EB
— EA Support (@AskEASupport) November 13, 2013
A brief message on EA’s support page explained that their systems that handle online gameplay, including matchmaking and logging in, are offline for all games. Players were not able to log in to EA sites or play online, and some may have found that they were dropped from multiplayer matches. EA has still not elaborated on the details, simply explaining in the initial announcement that they know about the issue and are working on fixing it.
To clarify, this incident is completely separate from the scheduled maintenance today for Battlefield 4, which passed by a few hours ago. Many players may never find out at all that there were even any issues.
We can confirm for sure that FIFA and Madden players noticed the system downtime. In particular, the FIFA community may have caught wind of the problems earlier than anyone else. You can check out some tweets below.
@EASPORTSFIFA EA Fifa Ultimate Team forum down? pic.twitter.com/2gqc3AYDrY
— Dave (@hambaps) November 13, 2013
@EASPORTSFIFA are the servers down on fifa
— Liam Hodgkinson (@hodgo21) November 13, 2013
Madden servers are down. My inbox dry. I just fell in love with a midget. That was my Tuesday.
— GlooryGang (@AirJo_ody) November 13, 2013
EA has been deeply invested in online multiplayer as a key component of their games for years now, and are doubling down in this investment for next gen. They can’t afford to have extended downtime, but it seems the publisher is also partially acknowledging that it simply cannot be avoided. We hope they have earnestly made sufficient preparations for the launch of their upcoming next generation games, especially Respawn’s Titanfall.