FIFA is a discontinued football video game franchise that was developed by EA Vancouver and EA Romania and published by EA Sports. As of 2011, the FIFA franchise has been localized into 18 languages and available in 51 countries. Listed in Guinness World Records as the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world, the FIFA series has sold over 325 million copies as of 2021.[5] On 10 May 2022, it was announced that EA and FIFA's partnership of 30 years would come to an end upon the termination of their licensing agreement, making FIFA 23 the last entry to the franchise under the FIFA name. As a successor to the FIFA series, EA launched the EA Sports FC franchise, with EA Sports FC 24 being the first installment under the new name.[6]
Football video games such as Tehkan World Cup, Sensible Soccer, Kick Off and Match Day had been developed since the late 1980s, and were already competitive in the games market when EA Sports announced a football game as the next addition to their EA Sports label. When the series began with FIFA International Soccer on the Sega Mega Drive in late 1993, it was notable for being the first to have an official license from FIFA, the world governing body of football. The main series has been complemented by additional installments based on single major tournaments, such as the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA European Football Championship, as well as a series of football management titles. Since the 1990s, the franchise's main competitor has been Konami's eFootball series (formerly known as Pro Evolution Soccer, or PES).
FIFA 12 holds the record for the "fastest selling sports game ever" with over 3.2 million games sold and over $186 million generated at retail in its first week of release.[10] The franchise's latest release, FIFA 23, was released worldwide on 27 September 2022. It is available for multiple gaming systems, including the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and Stadia.
While FIFA 95 did not add much other than the ability to play with club teams, FIFA 96 pushed the boundaries. For the first time with real player names by obtaining the FIFPro license, the PlayStation, PC, 32X and Sega Saturn versions used EA's "Virtual Stadium" engine, with 2D sprite players moving around a real-time 3D stadium. FIFA 97 improved on this with polygonal models for players and added an indoor soccer mode, but an early pinnacle was reached with FIFA: Road to World Cup 98. This version featured much improved graphics, a complete World Cup with qualifying rounds (including all national teams) and refined gameplay. Months later, World Cup 98 was EA's first officially licensed tournament game.
FIFA games have been met with some minor criticism; such as improvements each game features over its predecessor. As the console market expanded, FIFA was challenged directly by other titles, most notably Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) series.[12] The rivalry between both franchises since the 1990s has been considered the "greatest rivalry" in the history of sports video games. While FIFA initially had a more "arcade-style" approach, PES was more of a football simulation video game series with "faster-paced tactical play" and more varied emergent gameplay, which led to PES rivaling FIFA in sales during the 2000s. EA responded by borrowing gameplay elements from PES in order to improve FIFA, which led to FIFA pulling ahead commercially by a significant margin in the early 2010s.[13][14] Both FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer have a large following, but FIFA sales were rising by as much as 23 percent year-on-year in the early 2010s.[10]
By 2000, the FIFA series had sold more than 16 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling association football video game series.[15] In 2010, the FIFA series had sold over 100 million copies, making it the best-selling sports video game franchise in the world and the most profitable EA Sports title.[16][10] With FIFA 12 selling 3.2 million copies in the first week after its 27 September North American debut in 2011, EA Sports dubbed it "the most successful launch in EA Sports history".[10]
In 2012, EA Sports signed Lionel Messi to the FIFA franchise, luring him away from the competitor Pro Evolution Soccer. Messi's likeness was then immediately placed on the cover of FIFA Street. In 2013, the Spanish professional women's footballer Vero Boquete started a petition on Change.org, which called upon Electronic Arts to introduce female players in the FIFA series. The petition attracted 20,000 signatures in 24 hours.[17] FIFA 16, released on 25 September 2015, included female national teams.[18]
In 2018, Steve Boxer of The Guardian called FIFA 18 "the slickest, most polished and by far the most popular football game around" and "football [video] games' equivalent of the Premier League". He praised the game's FIFA Ultimate Team, which "encourages you to purchase Panini-sticker-like player packs to build up a dream team", adding the series has "an excellent Journey mode that lets you control an aspiring pro and build him up to an international superstar, and a Career mode that lets you control your favourite team on and off the field."[12] The sixth best-selling video game franchise, by 2021, the FIFA series had sold over 325 million copies.[5]
The latest installments in the series contain many exclusively licensed leagues including leagues and teams from around the world, including the German Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, English Premier League and EFL Championship, Italian Serie A and Serie B, Spanish La Liga and La Liga 2, French Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, Portuguese Primeira Liga, Turkish Sper Lig, Dutch Eredivisie, Scottish Premiership, the Swiss Super League, Russian Premier League, Polish Ekstraklasa, Mexican Liga MX, American Major League Soccer, South Korean K-League, Japanese J1 League, the Chinese Super League, Saudi Professional League, Australian A-League, Chilean Primera Divisin, Brazilian Campeonato Brasileiro Srie A, Argentine Liga Profesional de Ftbol, allowing the use of real leagues, clubs and player names and likenesses within the games. Popular clubs from around the world, including some teams from Greece, the Indian Super League, Ukraine and South Africa, are also included, without those nations' entire leagues. They are available in the "Rest of World" section.
This is the first FIFA game to feature real-time 3D graphics on the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and PC versions, using technology called "Virtual Stadium". It is also the first in the series to present players with real player names and positions, with ranking, transfer and team customisation tools. However, the Brazilian teams had mostly inaccurate rosters, some of them even featuring long-retired players (this would only be corrected in FIFA 99), and the American league consisted of entirely fictitious teams and rosters (Major League Soccer had been inaugurated for only a few months as of the game's release, but it would only start to appear in the games as of FIFA 2000). The SNES and Mega Drive versions use an updated version of FIFA 95's engine with new teams and graphics. It is also the first FIFA game to contain a player/team editor (in the Mega Drive and fifth-generation versions only). Also, in addition to the eight national leagues of the previous game, three leagues debuted in the game: Scottish Football League Premier Division, Allsvenskan and Super League Malaysia, a lineup that would stay for the next two editions as well. This was also the first FIFA game to have a proper introduction.
The biggest change in FIFA '97 was the inclusion of 6-a-side indoor soccer mode and polygonal players, with motion capture provided by David Ginola. The game features a much higher number of playable leagues from England, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Malaysia. These versions also feature commentary by John Motson, partnered by Andy Gray, with Des Lynam introducing the matches.
This game marks the start of an upward trend in the series. It boasts a refined graphics engine, team and player customisation options, 16 stadia, improved artificial intelligence, a "Road to World Cup" mode with all FIFA-registered national teams, and a licensed soundtrack featuring popular musical artists of the time. The game features many accurate team squads for national call up when playing in the round robin qualification modes. Another new feature was the ability to manually change the referee's strictness, allowing some fouls to go un-noticed or without punishment.
Additionally, for the first time in a FIFA game, the offside rule is properly implemented. In previous games, when a player was in an offside position doing anything except running, that player was penalised for offside even when the ball was passed backwards. The 32-bit version of FIFA 98 corrects this so that the game would only award a free kick for offside if the ball was passed roughly to where the player in the offside position was.
FIFA 98 was also the first of the series to feature a licensed soundtrack, with "Song 2" by Blur used as the intro track for the game. It was the last FIFA game to be released on the 16-bit consoles that the series had originated on.
It marked the introduction of Major League Soccer, replacing the fictitious "American" league previously included, as well as national leagues from Denmark, Greece, Israel, Norway and Turkey (though Galatasaray is not present in the game), albeit removing the Portuguese Liga.
The game received mixed reviews due to its cartoonish graphic engine and shallow gameplay, a brand new engine was implemented in an attempt to give more "emotion" to the 3D player models. The game was generally considered to be much inferior than its rival.
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