- yesterday
EA Sports FC 24 ditches FIFA and goes it alone after 24 years together – the result is a new look, but still a hugely enjoyable, experience.
FourFourTwo spoke to industry insiders and those involved in the game's 30-year history to bring you the complete story.
FourFourTwo spoke to industry insiders and those involved in the game's 30-year history to bring you the complete story.
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00:00This is how FIFA changed video games and football forever.
00:05Meet Tom Stone, now a revered industry veteran but 30 years ago recently appointed as EA's
00:11Vice President of European Marketing and assigned to the team working on the game.
00:16He still remembers the conversations inside the company ahead of the launch of the very
00:20first edition of FIFA and they weren't overly positive.
00:24The Americans just didn't get it, he told 442's Chris Evans.
00:28They were like, soccer, what is that?
00:31They asked how many units this game was going to sell, they said football wasn't very popular
00:35and we said, actually, it really is.
00:38In the end, even EA's European division who'd argued the case for the creation of a football
00:43game couldn't have envisaged quite how big their idea would become.
00:47While Stone and his colleagues were consciously searching for an evergreen franchise that would
00:51deliver big returns each year, in the same way as Madden NFL was doing in North America,
00:56they didn't foresee the global sensation that would follow.
01:00But following the game's first iteration, FIFA International Soccer released on Sega Mega
01:04Drive in late 1993, the series sold more than 330 million copies and became the biggest selling
01:12sports video game franchise of all time.
01:15It was kind of a little play with soccer in the US, with the World Cup being held there in
01:201994.
01:20But there was little resource and frankly limited interest and the game was very close
01:25to not being finished on time.
01:26They thought, let's get it out and forget about this thing and kind of sleepwalked into
01:30a cultural phenomenon.
01:32It became so big that they had to make another one and another one and another one.
01:36Over time, it overtook Madden and became the game globally that everybody wanted to play.
01:41It wasn't an accidental success, but it also wasn't a million miles off that.
01:46The idea of a football game had first been suggested to EA in late 1991, after senior
01:51executive Mark Lewis identified a gap in the market.
01:54At the time, early 90s cult classic Sensible Soccer had yet to hit the shops, and while Match
02:00Day, Kick Off and Emlyn Hughes International Soccer had earned some fans, no football game
02:05had yet been a huge hit.
02:07Despite the case that Lewis put forward, EA's US division were sceptical and felt football was
02:12too complicated to replicate in game form.
02:14They weren't entirely wrong.
02:17With the technology back then making for one-dimensional gameplay that struggled to provide authenticity,
02:22most football games were relatively rigid and formulaic, lacking the fluidity of real life.
02:28But the team of developers and business brains working on the game's concept had a plan to
02:32stand out from the crowd.
02:34Gameplay would be improved by breaking the tradition of the era, shunning a bird's eye view, instead
02:39creating an angled shot from the corner of the stadium to show more of the pitch and make
02:44the players seem 3D.
02:46Madden had a similar 45 degree view and that was one of the two things that allowed FIFA
02:51to break through, Stone tells 442.
02:54The other was the licensing strategy we pursued, signing up FIFA as a license partner.
02:59The 1993 game bore the FIFA name but didn't include real players, clubs or domestic leagues.
03:04Instead, it was a purely international affair with fake-named identikit players filling the
03:09squads of 48 national teams from around the world, including the powerhouses of Hong Kong,
03:15Iraq and Luxembourg.
03:16Tony Gubber provided commentary on the PC CD-ROM version, although it was on the Mega Drive
03:21that it really took off.
03:22EA's target of selling 300,000 copies in Europe, a figure that was considered ambitious, was smashed
03:28within weeks in the UK alone.
03:30More than half a million copies were sold in the first month of release in Britain, with
03:36FIFA International Soccer remaining at the top of the gaming charts deep into 1994.
03:42But already, work to make the second version of the game even better was well underway.
03:47One of Stone's main jobs was to secure the licensing deals from all over the world to
03:52allow FIFA 95 to feature all the major clubs.
03:56By the time FIFA 96 was released, it included the real names of the players too.
04:01EA Sports' slogan was, if it's in the game, it's in the game, Stone says.
04:05And that led to me getting on a plane with two other people, flying around the world and
04:09trying to sign every single league we could.
04:12We had a relationship with FIFA, but the last two letters of their name were an indication
04:16of what rights they actually had.
04:17F*** all.
04:19They had nothing, so we helped them to organise and make the leagues realise that they had
04:23rights.
04:24They had rights to stadiums, player rights, player likeness rights, apparel rights and
04:28the league structure.
04:29I flew to Italy, to Spain, France and Denmark, we did the MLS in North America and also the
04:34J-League in Japan.
04:36What made FIFA a success was that it ended up being a really compelling game experience.
04:40Quickly, the marketplace was also filling up with a host of other football titles, but
04:45the credibility that naming rights provided meant EA Sports offering grabbed the attention,
04:50even if some other games had edged ahead of FIFA in the gameplay stakes.
04:55Despite that early success though, the relationship between EA Sports and football's governing
05:00body wasn't always smooth.
05:02The value of FIFA's endorsement clearly hadn't gone unnoticed.
05:06No partnership was sacred if the potential for a better deal was on the table elsewhere.
05:10It was awkward because the only thing they wanted to talk about was, how much money are you going
05:15to give us, stone adds.
05:17There was very little discussion about building a long term partnership, which is what I wanted
05:20to do from a commercial standpoint.
05:22We didn't know quite how successful the game was going to become, but we had a sense that
05:26this thing could be pretty cool.
05:28Our position was that we wanted to be a good long term partner with FIFA, but they never
05:33responded.
05:34I did once say that it was like dating a girl you think is wonderful, but you also think,
05:38she's not saying very much, so I don't know where I stand.
05:41But I did find out though, because I got a call from someone at Sony in 1996.
05:46He said, you and I need to talk.
05:48I met him and he said FIFA are out shopping the license.
05:51He told me FIFA had approached Sony and asked if they'd be interested in taking the rights
05:56exclusively.
05:57This potential disaster was averted though before EA Sports cemented their relationship with the
06:02release of FIFA Road to World Cup 98.
06:05As anyone of a certain age will remember, this featured David Beckham on the cover in
06:09the UK.
06:10A fine tournament lay ahead for Bex where surely nothing could go wrong, yep we'll just
06:15skip that clip thanks very much.
06:17And the French version starred David Ginola who didn't even make the World Cup at all.
06:21With Raul and Paolo Maldini chosen in Spain and Italy respectively, it was one of the first
06:26examples of EA's new strategy to create a series of localised covers targeted at different nations.
06:32Before that, the very first cover shots captured in match action, spawning some unlikely protagonists.
06:38For FIFA 93, that meant Polish journeyman Pieter Swiazwetski made an appearance on the cover
06:43alongside England star David Platt.
06:46A year later, it was former Spurs goalkeeper Eric Todzwet diving to make a spectacular save.
06:51Then, perhaps most random of all, Notts County long throw merchant Andy Legge on the cover of FIFA 96,
06:58attempting a sliding tackle on Brescia's Sabau during the Anglo-Italian Cup Final.
07:03From the late 2000s, there was more of a negotiation with players, but what helped was that by that
07:07point, FIFA was such a behemoth that it was an honour to be on the cover, says author Price.
07:12You see, players debating their stats on the game and checking their likenesses, but although
07:16being on the cover wasn't quite the Ballon d'Or, it was one of the ultimate achievements
07:20as a footballer, to say you'd made it. What a power that is for a video game.
07:25But the game wasn't just about the on-pitch stars.
07:28Over the years, getting on the FIFA playlist became a huge deal for musicians of all statuses,
07:32and was credited with elevating the careers of several artists.
07:36Songs became synonymous with individual editions of the game, with the mere mention of certain tracks
07:41enough to automatically transport some players back to a particular year spent bashing controllers.
07:47When you think back to FIFA 98 and having Blurr's Song 2 on repeat,
07:50I loved that song because of FIFA, Price reminisces.
07:53And there are so many people who say the same about different songs.
07:57One of the best stories was that EA Sports basically discovered Avril Lavigne.
08:01One of her first gigs was in EA Sports Canteen trying to impress the music guy they'd hired,
08:06because they'd realised having a soundtrack just elevated the authenticity and feeling of the game.
08:12So they did this deal to put Complicated into FIFA 2003.
08:16The Song 2 deal was rather more unconventional.
08:19Sean Ratcliffe, who became the head of EA Sports Europe,
08:22called Blurr just as they were about to go on stage in Australia.
08:25He said to them,
08:26We want Song 2, what can we give you?
08:29Damon Albarn replied,
08:30We've got more money than we know what to do with,
08:32but what we can't get is tickets to the World Cup Final.
08:35EA Sports could, at the time, obviously get those,
08:38so they secured four tickets for the 1998 Final, and the deal was done.
08:42A relationship with Robbie Williams sprang up for FIFA 2000,
08:46when he was interviewed on his way out of that year's Brit Awards,
08:48having just won Best British Single, Best British Video, and Best British Male Solo Artist.
08:54Asked, What are you going to do now?
08:56He replied, I'm going home to play FIFA 99.
08:59EA immediately contacted his people to ask if that was true,
09:02and when they were told it was, a meeting was set up to discuss a relationship.
09:06Williams' song, It's Only Us, then became the theme music for the 2000 version,
09:10in exchange for his beloved Port Vale being included in the game.
09:14FIFA may have had the star quality, but that didn't always guarantee the game's position
09:19as the number one football sim.
09:21A contender to that crown came in the form of Pro Evolution Soccer, or PEZ,
09:25created by Japanese development company Konami.
09:28While PEZ couldn't come close to matching FIFA for its licensing,
09:32it's affectionately remembered for team names such as Merseyside Red for Liverpool,
09:36and players like Roberto Larcos instead of Roberto Carlos, its gameplay was considered
09:41to more than have the edge on that of FIFA.
09:44PEZ felt like football, whereas FIFA felt a bit more kick and run back then,
09:48according to Steve Merritt who ran PEZ's PR in the UK between 2002 and 2019.
09:54FIFA was very lightweight at the time, and PEZ had physicality to it.
09:57It was a slower game, but that made it feel more precise and tactical.
10:01There were also little things like the way players received the ball.
10:04In the early games when you had Gaza or Beckham in it, there was a slight difference to the
10:08way they played, whereas all the FIFA players were just identikit.
10:11Konami of course weren't the only ones to notice the difference.
10:14I shouldn't really tell you this, but during lunch times when we had a break,
10:18we'd play PEZ, we wouldn't actually play FIFA, confides Stone.
10:22You have to acknowledge it, otherwise you're not dealing with reality,
10:25and the reality was that PEZ was an outstanding game.
10:28We had to pull our socks up and say, what can we learn from this?
10:31In a dayday, PEZ was consistently selling between seven and nine and a half million
10:36copies for each edition, and developing a huge following, particularly in the UK.
10:40The glory days of PEZ were overseen by a guy called Seabass Takatsuka,
10:44and he was the guy who took it from PlayStation to PlayStation 2,
10:48but he left around the time it went to PlayStation 3, explains Merritt.
10:52PS3 was an awful time for PEZ, they brought in this new development team that claimed they were
10:56going for realism, but all they were really going for was realism of faces.
11:00Around the time of PEZ 2007, it became this really tedious game,
11:04where all the midfield nuance and individuality was taken for pace.
11:08That drop in quality coincided with FIFA doing what Konami had been doing before,
11:12so it was almost as though they swapped ethos.
11:14Opposition now vanquished, EA Sports continued to develop FIFA.
11:18Advances in technology only made innovation more possible.
11:22They toyed with cult spin-off FIFA Street in 2005, before rebooting it to more success in 2012.
11:28They brought in FIFA's player career mode where you could play as one individual,
11:32and added another dimension with the Journey trilogy,
11:35an immersive story focused on fictional starlet Alex Hunter.
11:39The pièce de résistance though came with the creation of FIFA Ultimate Team,
11:43where gamers collected packs of players to build a world-beating team from scratch.
11:48Ultimate Team revolutionised the gaming experience, becoming a cash cow for FIFA,
11:52thanks to its in-game purchases and introduction of a new fantasy aspect.
11:56The advent of super-fast broadband all over the world also mushroomed the online play modes,
12:02with Ultimate Team becoming the perfect grounding for players from around the globe
12:06to test their skills against others.
12:08It became the mode of choice for the booming market of professional FIFA competitions,
12:12with football clubs recruiting gamers to represent them in lucrative events.
12:16The prize money on offer started to run into six figures for the bigger tournaments,
12:21streamed by millions of esports fans and even broadcast on TV by Sky.
12:26It became a big business, and while there were stories of casual FIFA players upsetting the order
12:31to beat the pros at top events, elite online competition became principally the realm of well-backed
12:37teams packed with full-time players.
12:39That wasn't the case when David Bythway, the first British FIFA player to sign to a professional
12:44club when he joined Wolfsburg in 2016, was plucked from his bedroom in Wolverhampton
12:48to play the game on the world stage.
12:50I went to the Interactive World Cup that was hosted in Brazil in 2014, Bythway explains.
12:56The experience was amazing, me and a friend flew out to Rio, landed at 6am,
13:00but couldn't go to bed because the FIFA reps said there was filming to do on Copacabana Beach.
13:05That night we were taken to a rooftop bar above the beach when all of a sudden,
13:09the crew of Match of the Day came in. One moment we're just sitting, looking out,
13:12then we turn around and Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and the lot of them are walking towards us.
13:17The final itself was held on top of Sugarloaf Mountain and the Brazilian Ronaldo was there.
13:21He came to shake my hand before the final and wished me good luck. It was crazy.
13:25After 30 years though, the relationship between FIFA and EA Sports is over. Unable as they were,
13:32to agree a new deal to extend their partnership following a breakdown in negotiations.
13:37EA Sports FC24 retains all of the gameplay and licenses of the previous games just without the
13:43FIFA name. The governing body says it plans to release its own game next year to now rival EA.
13:49I'm so proud of my ex-colleagues from EA who said to FIFA,
13:53our game is bigger than you and while we'd love to work with you, the rights exist in the local
13:58leagues, Stone tells 442. FIFA are now back to 1993 where they have no rights to anything apart
14:06from the World Cup. While EA Sports game will broadly stay the same, the divorce brought the
14:11curtain down on one of football's most iconic partnerships, ending an era that played such a
14:16big part in so many people's lives. It's an era that may not have happened at all had EA's sceptical
14:22bigwigs not been swayed 30 years ago. Soccer? What is that?
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