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The Future Of FIFA?
In a recent interview with MCV, EA Sports head honcho Peter Moore alluded to the future of the Fifa franchise and a change in the way we recieve content.
“We need to provide that persistent world, maybe sometimes powered by discs, maybe on social networks, or the cloud or whatever. That’s’ the team’s vision, that no matter where you are or what you’re using, there’s a FIFA experience to be had, it all links together, it lifts your level up and identifies your status.”
With the integration between Fifa Superstars and the Fifa demo unlockables, we saw a small glimpse of these plans and how we might start to see Fifa popping up in more than one place.
“What you are now starting to see is some linkage between FIFA Superstars and unlocking some features in FIFA 11. It’s baby steps towards persistence and presence for a full FIFA eco system. And that, obviously, is where the franchise, just like the sport, is heading”
Eco system? I like that idea a lot, the possibilities are pretty exciting. Imagine using an app on your phone to view stats and bid for players on your way to work, log into your browser to tinker with your formations and finalise the deals at lunch, then pull everything down to your console when you get home. It sounds far fetched, but it’s a direction i’d love to see EA move towards. It’s not for everyone of course, but if designed and implemented properly, it would allow those that want to completely immerse themselves to do so without harming the player who like the yearly update system that’s in place at the moment.
How long it will take to move away from physical media to a completely digital delivery service is unknown and although they are clearly thinking about it, it doesn’t look like EA have made a concrete descision about what the future holds.
“Personally I still think there’ll be discs five years from now. One of the great things about FIFA is that it does permeate pretty much every corner of the world and there will be countries that don’t have the broadband infrastructure that we’re used to.”
“But generally yes, of course, I think there will come a time when FIFA is less a disc that you wait for in late September/early October, and more something that we provide 365 days a year.”
Read the full MCV interview with Peter Moore here, then head over to the forums to discuss.
Pip says:
It’s all about turning FIFA into something we pay £5 a month for. What a load of crap! They can’t even make a game that is finished properly once a year, let alone work on one all the time.
qO_ol says:
how about starting with meaningful DLC?
Walker says:
Well said pip totally agree. It will cost you more per year than the current physical disc, yet its cheaper to distribute = bigger profit for EA. I sold fifa11 and the thing with monthly subscriptions if the games bad just cancel it. All gaming companies will be going down this route anyhow.
The Liverpool Way says:
A very interesting Topic….
Andrew says:
I do like the concept of being able to tinker with formations or look for players on your phone on the way to work. I was actually thinking about this very thing the other day. “I wish there was a FIFA 11 app, where I could log into my game and search for that LB I need then stick a few bids in, even simulate the friendly games I have until the season starts”
Playstation had something like this years ago. A little thing you used like a Tamagotchi to grow your chocobo on final fantasy while you were away from your computer. You then plugged it into your PS and it would be updated.
I also like the way they introduced Superstars to get demo updates for FIFA. It did give another direction to the marketing, which, being in Sales, I am all for, as long as it doesn’t give a competitive disadvantage to people who don’t want to use Twitter etc.
Because of connection issues, I agree and can see that we’ll always have discs, but it’s the additional DLC that will come at a price and eventually, you will see teh option to add Champions League – 59p, Carling Cup – 59p, 3rd Kit – 59p, Transfers update – £1.19. It’s already begun with PS+.
Matt says:
EA should be careful: imo they’re already dangerously close to over-extending themselves and their brand image is at risk if they continue to give us bugged game modes like UT 10, MM 10, and CM this year. Love some of their ideas but those in the end are only as good as the execution.
Stu says:
concept good but like i have said before EA cannot get a simple manager mode concept to work in the last 3 attempts so an idea like this has epic fail written all over it. crawl before you can walk and never mind running. An EA/Si games colaberation is what we need and marcel kuhn should stick to C64 programming.
Tom Mills says:
@Matt completely agree. It has to work properly otherwise it will be worthless. Replay theatre, i’m looking at you.
@Andrew To be honest, i think microtransactions are going to find their way into everything in some way sooner or later. I’m not against it either, as long as it’s balanced. Completely agree about the twitter point. I hate Facebook. So i don’t want to be penalised for not using it, or find content that’s exclusive to certain sites, but when you look at other games and how they use pre order incentives it will probably happen in some way. As long as it’s not “you can only get x, if you do y”. I’m happy for people to take shortcuts by paying if they want, but it can’t offer a notable advantage over people who don’t want to cough up the cash. This was one of the reasons i couldn’t get into ultimate team.
I think battlefield got this right when they released the Specact (i think) DLC that allowed you to buy the top end weapons. They released it far enough after launch that meant anyone who put the time in, already earned those weapons, but allowed people who don’t have the time to level the field slightly at a small cost. It obviously raises the question of why people who earn the edge through playing should be able to lose it so swiftly, but not every can plough 40 odd hours into a game.
As for a more constant, all year round experience, it raises quite a few problems. What if i don’t want to buy the update day 1 but you do? It immediately splits the online userbase in half. How much will the updates cost? How frequent will they be? What will they include?
It will be interesting to watch this change happen.
Carew says:
I think that Fifa on Facebook was fail, CM is fail and full of bugs (renders it unplayable as it is today) and Creation centre is to skinny, too slow and uncalled for + it has too many untouched elements (like creating your pro club from scratch and putting it online – how could you miss this opportunity EA?).
The more arenas you place Fifa in (like Facebook, twitter etc), the bigger chance of fail and bugs. Please make a decent game to begin with and then expand. It’s all about your customers, remember?
PS. I really hope the patch to fix fifa11′s severely long buglist is released before FUT11 or I really see where EA’s priorities are..
Gareth Mensah says:
FAIL … the real future of Fifa is not facebook, we don’t need for it to lower its standart to that of FarmVille. No, the real future of Fifa is on the Video Game Canon ( http://videogamecanon.com ) to be reviewed and voted on as to its merit for innovation.
lisa | remote pc access software says:
The future of fifa is not FB. I hate FB and sick of all the talk about it. Give the power back to the players NOT the device.