The FIFA series, one of the notorious juggernauts of sport-simulation games, has been around since late 1993. Whilst not the first soccer video games, it was the first to incorporate an official license from FIFA and attained the rights to the names of real players, teams, and leagues. This aspect of licensing is what propelled its popularity across the world – by 2011 the franchise was localized in 18 languages and available in 51 countries, and in 2018 FIFA sold over 260 million copies. Every year, FIFA continues to release iterative editions of the game and its legions of fans continue to buy the most up-to-date copy every September. How does it continue to command such demand from the consumers, when the mechanics and modes of the game may only change slightly?
The reliance on the game to extract value from its parallel real-world soccer events appeals heavily to the gamer and is embodied in the nature of FIFA 19’s success. Whilst John Sharp’s ‘Artgames’ (2015) argues that certain games can hold innate properties to explore metaphysical questions around life and ethics, FIFA’s genre of simulation-based sporting games offers almost a polar distinction to this grouping – FIFA is a game that exists primarily to imitate, and its criterion for success is highly dependent on how well its graphics and gameplay are able to mimic the strike of a football and capture the emotions and intensity of the sport. However, whilst perhaps not strictly an ‘artgame’, FIFA is constantly concerned with its artistic impression.
The game uses motion-capture with professional footballers to master the precise dynamics of every kick, it uses scanning technology to shape facial features accurately, and the artificial intelligence used in the game to control supporting players is programmed to accurately map how players would perform in high-intensity match situations. In addition, the game designs replicas of stadiums across the globe and includes fans that react to every goal and miss. As a result, the game strives to capture the real-world of football as accurately as possible.
As a result of this attention-to-detail and richness of game design, it makes it hard to claim that game cannot exist in the sphere of art. Whilst ‘Artgames’ offer their own unique questions, perhaps these types of games can be mapped to the artistic genre of Romanticism, a genre overtly concerned with individualisation and subjectivity of experience which was developed in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and. Adversely, FIFA acts as the gaming equivalent of Realism, an artistic genre that strives to negate stylisation in favour of accurately depicting reality. Whilst FIFA differs in objective to the French realists of the 19th Century, the depiction of the game as art and constant development of accuracy within each edition of FIFA game works towards removing any illusionistic elements to it game engine. FIFA’s largest rival, Pro Evolution Soccer, has constantly declined over the last ten years as FIFA has continued to grow – and this has been in large part due to FIFA’s monopoly of licensing – it is better able to reflect the reality of soccer than Pro Evolution Soccer, and as a result, is favoured by consumers. FIFA has also adapted to offer real-time updates beyond the yearly instalments. Team squads are now updated weekly (as opposed to yearly) to reflect player’s form and injuries and allows any match up between friends to mirror the essence of realism and propel them into the emotion of real-world soccer. FIFA’s most popular game mode Ultimate Team is a fantasy-style market-based game where players can purchase packs and players from a live-market using game coins and real money. This mode extends the realism (and allows the game to make ludicrous amounts of revenue) by releasing weekly and, sometimes daily, new iterations of players based on team-of-the-weeks and man-of-the-match performances.
In FIFA 19, the largest addition was not focused on any gameplay mechanics, but instead new licensing. After years of Pro Evolution Soccer’s sole licensing of the Champions League, the most competitive and commercial club competition in world soccer, FIFA finally gained the rights to the UEFA Champions League. In regards to gameplay, FIFA 18 and FIFA 19 are practically identical. Scoring goals and moving players has no noticeable differences, however, the success and positive reviews of the game all attest to the importance of the Champions Licensing in creating and elevating a superior game experience. In Champion’s League games (both online and in games against friends), the classical soundtrack blares as the players shake hands, the logo flashes across the screen every time the ball goes out of play, and the players shirts features the official embroidered and prestigious champions league badge. In respect to realism, perhaps this is what allows FIFA 19 to capture a previously untapped level of emotional intensity.
FIFA gamers reap enjoyment from bragging rights over friends, gaining new players on Ultimate Team, and pursuing careers as managers as they design their dream teams. This is now skewed to a whole new level – with the simple addition of Champions League rights. Mechanics and the simulation of the game are not in the mind of experienced players as they purchase the new FIFA edition. Instead, the narrative goal of taking their team to the Champions League final creates a previously unreachable emotional triumph – the players will lift the cup in the result of success and ribbons of celebration will scatter across the screen, or, if the final is lost, the players will look down towards the floors and slump on the floor in the foreground as the opposition players celebrate in the background. The FIFA player is more engaged, more emotional, and thus, more tied to the game than ever before. This is what allows FIFA 19 to continue the series monopoly over sports-simulation games and win over fans of the sport across the world.
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