This year marks the 25-year anniversary of the first release of the video game FIFA, then known as FIFA International Soccer.
With each yearly release FIFA aspires to close the gap between simulation and the real thing, promising ever-increasing detail in player graphics and gameplay. Its attempt at realism has undoubtedly been the key to its cult following and domination of the esports market. Like the shiny, commercially accessible, branded-for-entertainment A-League, FIFA has always promised to be ‘new football’, not ‘old soccer’.
The past two and half decades have seen FIFA claim a significant amount of responsibility for exposing the USA to football and for increasing the sport’s popularity. A 2016 study by Andrew Markovits and Adam Green found that a correlation exists between the steady growth in FIFA sales and the rise in popularity of the professional men’s game.
The study even went so far as to suggest that the popularity of FIFA fertilised the ground for the development of Major League Soccer. Even celebrity powerhouse Drake, now an avid football fan, admitted in a 2014 ESPN interview that he simultaneously picked up the game and started learning about football.
In Australia FIFA has similarly broken itself into not only football and gaming culture but also popular culture more generally. You only have to watch the music video of emerging Perth rapper Hawi73’s new song FIFA to witness friends hanging out, controllers in hand, ‘cooling playing FIFA’ with ‘HSP for dinner’.
FIFA is a staple in Australian youth culture. Its potential here, as in the US, lies in its ability to engage those who have no personal or family history of playing football and give them a simulation of what the world may be like should they choose to be baptised into our code’s faith. This was the A-League’s goal too: to draw ‘old soccer’ away from the grassroots ethnic clubs of the NSL – clubs that had a passion for the game well and truly in their blood – and to promote the game’s entertainment value, marketability and accessibility for the uninterested and uninformed Australian.
But in its quarter of a century FIFA has done more than just change the landscape of football for the fans and promoters; it has wormed itself into the very way in which players and coaches themselves approach the game. FIFA.com reported that after saving a penalty from Ronaldinho in 2008 Parma goalkeeper Marco Amelia commented that the experience was “just like playing against him on Playstation. He had the same run-up. It was very strange”.
EA Sports producer Gilliard Lopes Dos Santos also told FIFA.com, “For the action to be as realistic and impressive as possible, we record and study how the players move on the pitch, the precision of their passing, how they take a penalty, their headers, and even the physics of the ball”.
FIFA’s lifelike looks and its reliance on an incredibly well-researched database of player statistics has meant that teams have even begun to use the game for scouting or to practice against opponents, reported The Guardian in 2016. Real players are simultaneously virtual players: even Kylian Mbappe’s goal celebration – his arms folded with his hands tucked under and his thumbs stuck out – is borrowed from FIFA victories over his little brother.
Has FIFA’s influence been for the best? It has ensured the rise in popularity of football and has opened the game up to a legitimate claim on the sport’s international importance, particularly in Australia and the US, where this was lacking. But I am not particularly sure about what it has done for the quality of the game itself here.
(Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
Though I have grown with the A-League, I can’t help but feel that Australian football’s golden era may have been the grassroots NSL era of pre-2005, especially since it produced the Socceroos of the 2006 World Cup. So I’m not convinced that that which is branded as shiny and bound for the future – both FIFA and the A-League – are really as full of substance as their surfaces indicate.
If the game’s simulation can help players learn how to play in real life, are we really seeing the benefits? Is the quality of football better now that it has become a profession in which people are able to play consoles in their leisure time, or was it better when people played entirely out of their love for the game, even though they often had to take on additional work?
In any case, for a game that has always aspired to emulate real life and which has done so fairly convincingly thus far, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps now it is real life that is aspiring to be an emulation of the virtual. I certainly experience a small brain lag every time I enter a room in which my friends or family have football on the screen – “Is this real? Or a simulation?”,
It strikes me that as that lag gets slightly longer, the gap between real and virtual will become ever smaller.
MQ
Guest
In many modern housing developments, not only are the blocks smaller than they once were, but the modern trend is to take up almost all of the block with the actual house. When I was a kid, living in what is now considered inner-Melbourne, you could play any ball sport on many streets. There were no cars parked out on the street, and you'd have to stop for a car passing perhaps once every 10 or so minutes. Those days are long gone.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Are you seriously suggesting play and downtime activities is down to smaller back yards? I do not live is an expensive area by any means and there is still plenty of space in backyards to play sport. Brisbane as a whole is still pretty much the same as it was We used to play on the street to but that is not really an option in todays world. Many parents would not let their kids do that. Kids spend a massive amout of extra time on elecronic devices now compared to previous generations. It is changing health levels of kids to the point of health organizations making calls for greater physical activity, better diet for kids and less screen time. I am sure smaller backyards don't help but that is a tiny part of the change.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Certainly it's hard to do much in the modern tiny backyards. I could play backyard cricket growing up, no way we will ever be able to afford a place with a big enough yard for our kids to do that.
Rellum
Roar Guru
It is obviously not "FIFA's" fault. We are living through probably the greatest and fastest change in human history. Digital disruption, digital revolution, what ever you want to call it has change life drastically over the last 15 years. There are plenty of backyards by the way. My point is people who have them don't use them.
mattq
Guest
is this FIFA's fault or the fact backyards hardly exist anymore in new estate developments across the country with massive houses, theatre rooms etc. all squashed onto a tiny block?
Kangas
Roar Rookie
I totally agree. Backyard cricket , league and soccer produced a far more talented generation in the 90s that what we see now So much of modern sport is so robotic and programmed, backyard sport was a way to learn skills uninhibited.
Rellum
Roar Guru
I think just from a simple time use judgement. Kids spending less time kicking a ball and more time pressing buttons in the long run leads to a less skilful players at the highest level. I actually think this is the case across all sports in Aus at least. When I was growing up. backyard cricket was a massive part of your afternoon after school on many a day. I sure it is the same with other sports. The current crop of Test cricketers are not on the same level as players from the 90's skill wise. I get the same impression from watching football as well. More athletic players, better endurance and speed, but less skill and creativity. That is just my opinion of course. But I am sure players learn tactics, or at least think more about tactics and position roles more as kids playing games which is a good thing. Maybe even starts them early in trying to outwit the opposition tactically. There is always pluses and negatives to all change.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Me too on the rare occasion I play it now.
Fadida
Guest
I lost 100's of hours on Emelyn Hughes. God it was great!
Fadida
Guest
Me too
Waz
Roar Rookie
You don’t even know this is an article about the game called FIFA not the organisation do you ?
Wise Old Elf
Guest
Same here. Game play for PES is a lot more satisfying. Downside is the lack of licenses for official sides, but the worldwide PES community sorts that all out. I did play FIFA back in the early days, but PES was the great leap forward. I try FIFA every now and then, but the gameplay is just not as pleasant.
buddy
Guest
frustration at not being good enough or just sign of a lot of time being invested?
The Phantom Commissioner
Roar Rookie
A fair few broken playstation controllers in my case.
Buddy
Guest
Apart from being a whole load of fun to play and a more positive way of pressing buttons than spending the time killing people and blowing things up which is the mainstay of many games, FIFA has, I believe been responsible for changing the approach to playing the game for our younger generations. Having grown up with the C-64 and International Soccer in cartridge form (the pirated version was good too) and then Emlyn Hughes endorsement, Fighting Soccer and a vast array of titles as the graphics and gameplay improved and provided a more detailed experience, I can attest to the fact that it has just been about playing a game and being entertained. However, I see a whole different approach from our junior players. I see children trying Rainbow kicks, bicycles, Scorion kicks et all and I see goal celebrations and dance movements and more often than not when I inquire as to where they learnt it, the answer comes back as “FIFA”. I spend my time coaching kids on how to strike a ball to make it curl in a particular direction, or how to ship the ball rather than drive it with laces and I’m often greeted with negative responses as they struggle to master the basic techniques of ball control and yet their foot movements and ability to take on players 1 v1 is often outstanding. Yes, I’d argue that FIFA has been responsible for the invention of a whole new type of player - juniors at least!
Buttery
Guest
A huge amount of corruption by officialdom.
Ad-0
Guest
I'm a PES man, myself.