The providers of Game Pass Europe, the official live streaming service of American football league the NFL, have said they will compensate customers after apologising for another weekend in which the platform was hit by major technical issues.
In a statement released on Game Pass Europe’s official Twitter page, developers said the product’s refund policy will be amended and compensation plans announced by 5pm GMT tomorrow (Tuesday).
The statement on Sunday evening came after Game Pass customers again used social media to vent their anger at the standard of service from the platform, which has come under new management this season.
The statement read: “Earlier today, Game Pass Europe experience a severe outage due to a technical issue. We apologise to the NFL fans who have been impacted. We have not delivered to our customers the expected standard of service for Game Pass.”
Game Pass Europe is now being provided by OverTier, a joint venture between global sports marketing company Bruin Sports Capital and advertising and public relations giant WPP to run the OTT business of the NFL throughout Europe.
The Bruin-WPP venture was formed in June in order to drive expansion of the Game Pass over-the-top service throughout Europe. Through the venture, sports media and technology firm Deltatre, a Bruin company, is powering Game Pass across a combined 61 European countries and territories.
This includes the development of a new product optimised for cross-platform viewing. Deltatre is also managing end-to-end technology delivery, streaming, user-facing applications, back-end support, payments and customer service.
Digital media services are being led by sports marketing agency, Two Circles, which is part of GroupM’s ESP Properties and supported by fellow WPP agencies MEC and Ogilvy. Two Circles is working alongside Bruin and Deltatre to grow Game Pass’ European subscriber base.
The weekend’s service disruption came after Deltatre and the NFL were forced to apologise after it emerged that fake reviews of the Game Pass were being posted in order to counter the negative reaction the new-look service has received since launch.
UK newspaper The Independent said Deltatre had encouraged its employees to post positive reviews to boost its average score on app stores. In a statement, Deltatre said: “We have taken swift action to remove the limited number of these reviews. We have also taken measures to improve our internal processes and increased oversight to ensure this does not happen again.
“NFL Game Pass Europe is an important service to NFL fans outside the US and we are committed to delivering the best possible service to them.”
Mark Waller, executive vice-president of international and events at the NFL, added: “We are very disappointed that Deltatre employees were asked to post their own positive reviews. This activity is inconsistent with our own NFL values and behaviours and we have clearly communicated this to Deltatre. We are pleased by the swift action they have taken and are now focused on continuing to improve the service being offered to our fans.”