FOOTBALL AFICIONADOS may associate
FIFA, the governing body of the sport, with scandal.
In 2015 an investigation by the FBI led to the
arrests of several officials onDionne daniels porn. For casual
football enthusiasts, however, the name probably brings to mind
something else: the world’s most popular sports video game.
The “FIFA” series,
produced by EA Sports, a division of Electronic
Arts, an American firm, is a football-simulation game. Its format
is straightforward: players control teams, modelled on real-life
ones, and compete for glory. On September 30th EA
Sports will release “FIFA 23”. Since their
inception, “FIFA” games have sold more than 325m
copies across various formats. Each release is a much-anticipated
event in the entertainment calendar.
This one is remarkable, as it marks
the end of a long and very successful collaboration between
EA Sports and FIFA. Over the past 30
years, “FIFA” has spawned into a football subculture
and embedded itself into the sport. Its legions of fans include the
world’s top professional footballers. Lionel Messi, considered by
many to be 14 foot tri hull boat, spends hours on the game; he is said
to treat it as a source of tactical knowledge as well as fun.
Players closely monitor the game’s
rating system, which scores real-life footballers on a range of
attributes such as pace and passing. Stars have railed against the
game’s producers for perceived slights against their talent. Ahead
of this year’s release, Wilfried Zaha, an Ivory Coast international
who plays for Crystal Palace, said he has given up playing the game
because of how he has been appraised. The rankings, which are
compiled by a team of more than 6,000 reviewers around the world,
are reliable enough to support data analysis—see, for instance,
The Economist’s Sleeper hold women.
Watching other people play the game
has also become a form of amusement in its own right; some of the
biggest influencers on YouTube owe their success to commentating on
others playing “FIFA”. Professional clubs have hired
expert games players to represent them in online leagues and
tournaments. All this has brought more fans into the sport itself.
In 2014 a poll by ESPN found that 34% of Americans
started following football in real life after playing
“FIFA” at home.
Unsurprisingly, the series rakes in a
lot of money. FIFA earns an estimated $150m every
year for lending its name to the games. They are EA
Sports’s biggest earners and have brought over $20bn into its
coffers since 2000. Revenues have rocketed in the past decade as
“FIFA” has routed the competition. In the 2000s “Pro
Evolution Soccer”, a game developed by Konami, a Japanese firm,
provided some competition. Despite not owning the licences for team
names—Manchester United was called “Man Red”, for instance—some
puritans said the gameplay on “Pro Evolution Soccer” was smoother
and more responsive. EA Sports responded soon
enough, revamping “FIFA” and introducing new, hugely
popular features, such as FIFA Ultimate Team, in
which gamers can build superstar squads by buying players. This
drew in even more revenue.
Why, then, are both sides ending such
a lucrative partnership? FIFA, not known for its
lack of avarice, is chasing even more money: it plans to offer fans
more choice by developing new games with other studios. Gianni
Infantino, FIFA’s president, has insisted that any
new game bearing the organisation’s name will remain the “only
authentic” one and will “remain THE BEST”. EA Sports
is equally bullish. Next year it plans to launch “EA
Sports FC”. It is confident that it can retain fans
accustomed to the most sophisticated game on the market.
Another reason for the split is a
sense that a lack of competitiveness has hurt the game itself:
recent editions of “FIFA” have been criticised by
fans for failing to improve the game in a meaningful way. The
introduction of in-game purchases of players has been
controversial, too, as gaming purists consider a “pay-to-win” model
inherently unfair. In a few countries, the purchase of player packs
is being scrutinised as a form of gambling; last year regulators in
Belgium banned such in-game transactions. A new game developed by
Strikerz Inc., “UFL”, tackles this problem by
promising a “fair-to-play” model. It is scheduled for release in
2023.
With every edition, EA
Sports has sought to make the game as realistic as possible. Ahead
of “FIFA 23”, the developers recorded 90-minute
matches with motion-capture suits, following a total of more than
70 players. That yielded more than 6,000 animations, which will
make all aspects of the game more authentic, from dribbling to
shooting. For many gamers, this is not necessarily an improvement.
In their view, video games are meant to suspend disbelief: they
would prefer to easily loft a ball across the pitch into the stride
of a rampaging forward than “realistically” manage to boot it into
touch. Striking the right balance between reality and fantasy will
be a key challenge for both FIFA and
EA as they and their creations part ways.
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