From FIFA23 to FC24: Nearly a year on what to make of the transition
How does one measure the success of a video game? Is it by the amount of money it makes in its lifetime or the various ways in which people rely on the game .
Hyderabad: What lies ahead for EA’s football simulator?
How does one measure the success of a video game? Is it by the amount of money it makes in its lifetime, the number of players and playthroughs it garners, the popularity it enjoys among the larger gaming community, or the various ways in which people rely on the game to either compete at gaming events or create content for platforms like Twitch and YouTube.
Few games are popular across all the four above-mentioned aspects, but EA Sports’ FIFA was an exception, it perennially competed against Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer and found ways to retain popularity while innovating year after year.
However, at the end of FIFA23, everything changed (no, the Fire nation did not attack) but the licensing deal to use FIFA wasn’t renewed and thus, FC24 came into being. A game that was expected to extend EA’s dominance in the genre and to spar against FIFA’s (the governing body’s) own game that is supposedly in the works.
However, the last eight months for FC24 have been anything but rosy as the new franchise has struggled to find traction or the interest that was once considered the norm for the FIFA franchise.
The challenge with FC24 is so significant that it is difficult to comprehend how the game is being made available for free as part of this month’s three-monthly games for PlayStation Plus users. Especially when we factor in that April-May is when Ultimate Team’s Team of the Season promo runs.
In the case of earlier FIFAs, this was a time when the game was brimming with intense competition week after week as millions battled it out to pack coveted end-game versions of popular players as rewards for the weekend league. In FC24 though, the supposed business end of the season has been anything but interesting as the game has struggled to garner either interest for players or viewers of streams.
To put things in perspective, two of the game’s most popular global streamers, with over 2 million subscribers each, Castro1021 and AA9Skillz, have seen a decline in viewership for FC24-related content. Castro hasn’t streamed anything FC24-related for over six months now, and AA9Skillz’s reaction and opinion videos on live football games have been more successful on his second channel this month than his content for FC24.
In terms of year-on-year comparison, AA9Skillz’s videos from this time last year were averaging around 50k views each, as opposed to this year’s range of 18-35k. While the fall may not seem too drastic, viewership is just over 0.015 percent of his 2.1 million subscriber base. Things are no different for medium-sized streamers like Fuji (299k subscribers) and La5ty (568k subscribers), whose videos have slid from 30-20k views (Fuji) and 25-19k views (La5ty) to 12-18k and 8-12k views respectively. In La5ty’s case, that is more than a 50 percent fall in viewership.
As the figures suggest, EA’s vision for its football game has begun to lose momentum. What was once a popular franchise with the requisite ecosystem to attract new players and sustain year-long interest now comes across as a tired promo-churning machine.
It seems more focused on generating additional revenue rather than amplifying players’ experiences with the game. Thus, despite operating in a virtual monopoly, the market for people buying a flagship football simulator has shrunk every year since 2013.
In this context, I simply don’t understand what EA is trying to achieve by offering its flagship sports game as part of this month’s PS Plus free games. Is it trying to entice non-buyers to experience FC24, and if so, experience what?
New players are too late in the year for Ultimate Team, and there are hardly any significant improvements in other game modes to celebrate about. I believe these are signs of more unrest in the offing. EA must watch out because monopolies end too.