In the film The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg and his friend and co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin, are in a college lecture and two women ask them out for drinks by saying they will “Facebook” them later.
Zuckerberg and Saverin are enthused not particularly by the offer for a date, but rather their emerging soon-to-be billion-dollar business had become mainstream enough on campus to be used as one word and be freely understood.
For a generation of gamers, just saying the word “Fifa” had a clear meaning and one that didn’t bring up memories of Sepp Blatter’s corruption charges.
The world’s most popular football video game has become synonymous with the name of the world’s football federation. Fifa 23 will be the last video game made in the way so familiar to fans after EA Sports and Fifa failed to reach an agreement over licensing fees for future games.
At the heart of the split between EA Sports and Fifa is the power of the name. In a game of high brinkmanship, Fifa looked for $250 million a year from EA Sports for use of the name licence and $1 billion over four years.
A step too far for EA, who have decided to go their own way and release a newly titled EA Sports FC from next year, while Fifa has stated an intention to enter a partnership with a new developer to produce “the only authentic, real game that has the Fifa name,” according to Fifa boss Gianni Infantino.
[ Fifa and EA Sports end two-decade video game partnershipOpens in new window ]
Unconcerned by the split and with $250 million saved in the bank, EA Sports has already secured licences of Champions League, Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga for their next edition and is relying on fan loyalty and 30 years of reliable gaming experiences will bring gamers over with them under their new name.
Infantino insists Fifa will continue to publish the game without EA, saying “the Fifa name is the only global, original title. Fifa 23, Fifa 24, Fifa 25 and Fifa 26, and so on – the constant is the Fifa name and it will remain forever and remain the best”.
Whether it will remain the best remains to be seen. It will be a quick turnaround to create a new Fifa game from the ground up, and a developer has yet to be announced.
Fifa must be wary of the cautionary tale of Championship Manager after Eidos split with Sports Interactive in 2003. The brains of football management simming went to a new company – Football Manager – and the rest is history. Football Manager became a gaming institution and Championship Manager is now a relic of the past, with Eidos giving up on the series in 2010.
At least, the last official Fifa game as we know it is a good one. EA announced on Wednesday that the game had attracted 10.3 million players in the first week, which made it the biggest launch in their history.
What football will look like on next-generation consoles is beginning to crystallise as Fifa 23 is its third edition on the PS5. The result is evolution rather than revolution, subtle changes in gameplay and presentation, without losing the focus of what video games should be – fun.
Dribbling and shooting have been revamped in Fifa 23. More variation to shooting is a welcome addition with new shot trajectories including low, dipping, bouncing shots and a new power shot feature to try to score a screamer you will remember. New skill moves and technical dribbling give players a unique feel and they move more intelligently and turning more responsively.
The licences are as polished as ever as women’s football has got the attention it deserves with the addition of the FA Women’s Super League and the French first division licensed and realistic.
It is a World Cup year so all the teams and players from the Fifa World Cup in Qatar in November will be included in future free downloadable content. Cross-play will be available for players on the same platform generation in Fifa 23, although disappointingly for Pro Clubs and Volta players, it is not available on launch.
Playable highlights are a nice addition to Career Mode, letting players experience just key moments of a match. Player career mode now includes off-the-pitch activities, from enrolling on a PR course to buying a luxury brand, while manager mode now includes licensed managers. Ultimate Team brings in a new chemistry mode it claims that is easier to understand, although that remains to be seen when it comes to Squad Building Challenges.
With the demise of the once-superior Pro Evolution Soccer, now rebranded as a free game eFootball with terrible reviews, a bit of competition to EA Sports is not necessarily bad for the football game industry.
In the PlayStation 1 era, football games were plentiful in the market, from This is Football to Actua Soccer to Sensible Soccer. By the PlayStation 4, only two remained (PES and Fifa) as Fifa and EA Sports had monopolised the market.
Take-Two interactive, the parent company of 2K games, has said Fifa is a “great brand”, but have distanced themselves from active discussions on producing a game. Getting the designers behind the expertly-produced NBA 2k games might give Fifa a fighting chance of competing with the behemoth of EA Sports. The race is on to dominate the next generation of football games.
