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.
04:24We had rights to stadiums, player rights, player likeness rights, apparel rights and the
04:28league 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
06:02the release 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.
06:45A 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
06:56of FIFA 96, attempting 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 as a footballer to say you'd made it.
07:22What a power that is for a video game.
07:24But the game wasn't just about the on-pitch stars.
07:27Over 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.
07:46When you think back to FIFA 98 and having Blurr's song 2 on repeat, I loved that song because of FIFA, Price reminisces.
07:53And there are so many people who say the same about different songs.
07:56One of the best stories was that EA Sports basically discovered Avril Lavigne.
08:00One 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.
08:11So they did this deal to put complicated into FIFA 2003.
08:15The song 2 deal was rather more unconventional.
08:18Sean Ratcliffe, who became the head of EA Sports Europe, called Blurr just as they were about to go on stage in Australia.
08:24He said to them, we want song 2, what can we give you?
08:28Damon Albarn replied, we've got more money than we know what to do with, but what we can't get is tickets to the World Cup Final.
08:34EA Sports could, at the time, obviously get those, so they secured 4 tickets for the 1998 Final and the deal was done.
08:42A relationship with Robbie Williams sprang up for FIFA 2000 when 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.
08:53Asked what are you going to do now, he replied, I'm going home to play FIFA 99.
08:58EA immediately contacted his people to ask if that was true and when they were told it was, a meeting was set up to discuss a relationship.
09:05Williams' song, It's Only Us, then became the theme music for the 2000 version in exchange for his beloved Port Vale being included in the game.
09:13FIFA may have had the star quality, but that didn't always guarantee the game's position as the number one football sim.
09:20A contender to that crown came in the form of Pro Evolution Soccer, or PEZ, created by Japanese development company Konami.
09:28While PEZ couldn't come close to matching FIFA for its licensing, it's affectionately remembered for team names such as Merseyside Red for Liverpool
09:35and players like Roberto Larcos instead of Roberto Carlos, its gameplay was considered to more than have the edge on that of FIFA.
09:43PEZ felt like football, whereas FIFA felt a bit more kick and run back then, according to Steve Merritt who ran PEZ's PR in the UK between 2002 and 2019.
09:53FIFA 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.
10:00There were also little things like the way players received the ball.
10:03In the early games when you had Gazza or Beckham in it, there was a slight difference to the way they played, whereas all the FIFA players were just identikit.
10:10Konami, 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, we'd play PEZ, we wouldn't actually play FIFA, confides Stone.
10:21You have to acknowledge it, otherwise you're not dealing with reality, and the reality was that PEZ was an outstanding game.
10:27We had to pull our socks up and say, what can we learn from this?
10:31In a dayday, PEZ was consistently selling between 7 and 9.5 million copies 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, but he left around the time it went to PlayStation 3, explains Merritt.
10:51PS3 was an awful time for PEZ, they brought in this new development team that claimed they were going 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 where all the midfield nuance and individuality was taken for pace.
11:07That drop in quality coincided with FIFA doing what Konami had been doing before, so it was almost as though they swapped Ethos.
11:14Opposition now vanquished, EA Sports continued to develop FIFA. Advances in technology only made innovation more possible.
11:21They 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, and added another dimension with the Journey trilogy, an immersive story focused on fictional starlet Alex Hunter.
11:38The piece de resistance, though, came with the creation of FIFA Ultimate Team, where gamers collected packs of players to build a world-beating team from scratch.
11:47Ultimate Team revolutionised the gaming experience, becoming a cash cow for FIFA thanks 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, with Ultimate Team becoming the perfect grounding for players from around the globe to test their skills against others.
12:07It became the mode of choice for the booming market of professional FIFA competitions, with 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, streamed by millions of esports fans and even broadcast on TV by Sky.
12:25It became a big business, and while there were stories of casual FIFA players upsetting the order to beat the pros at top events, elite online competition became principally the realm of well-backed teams packed with full-time players.
12:38That wasn't the case when David Bythway, the first British FIFA player to sign to a professional club when he joined Wolfsburg in 2016, was plucked from his bedroom in Wolverhampton to play the game on the world stage.
12:50I went to the Interactive World Cup that was hosted in Brazil in 2014, Bythway explains.
12:55The experience was amazing. Me and a friend flew out to Rio, landed at 6am, but couldn't go to bed because the FIFA reps said there was filming to do on Copacabana Beach.
13:04That night we were taken to a rooftop bar above the beach when all of a sudden, the crew of Match of the Day came in.
13:10One moment we're just sitting, looking out, then 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 wish me good luck. It was crazy.
13:25After 30 years though, the relationship between FIFA and EA Sports is over.
13:30Unable as they were, to agree a new deal to extend their partnership following a breakdown in negotiations.
13:36EA Sports FC24 retains all of the gameplay and licenses of the previous games, just without the FIFA name.
13:43The 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, our game is bigger than you, and while we'd love to work with you, the rights exist in the local leagues, Stone tells 442.
14:00FIFA are now back to 1993, where they have no rights to anything apart from the World Cup.
14:06While EA Sports game will broadly stay the same, the divorce brought the curtain down on one of football's most iconic partnerships.
14:13Ending an era that played such a big part in so many people's lives.
14:18It's an era that may not have happened at all, had EA's skeptical bigwigs not been swayed 30 years ago.
14:25Soccer? What is that?
14:27What is that?
14:28.
14:29.
14:30.
14:31.
14:32.
14:33.