FIFA is one of the biggest selling games every year so when EA Sports boss Peter Moore starts talking about potential changes to the game you sit up and take notice.
Speaking to MCV Moore said:
“Football for most of us is pretty constant. This year there was, what, a 15 day off-season. And even then we were thinking about it and reading about it. That’s the space football occupies in our lives and that’s how we’ve got to look at it.”
“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.”
One of the more interest comments came from Moore when he was speaking about the possibility of not using yearly disc releases in the future. It may not be this generation but he appears fairly confident it will happen.
“Personally I still think there’ll be discs five years from now. 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.
“In a few years time I expect to have less of a team developing and as many if not more doing live operations.”
A monthly subscription service looks like a good option for FIFA, assuming you wouldn’t need to purchase a new copy each year. I’m sure EA could get away with a £4 or £5 monthly fee as long as they provided free software and squad updates within the subscription.
Moore went on to talk about how the cloud-based FIFA Superstars, which averages 4.3 million users a month, would be changing.
“The business model’s simple: you accept that the vast majority of users will never pay you a penny and you learn to be cool with that. Plus you get people like me who want deeper engagement, and can’t sit still waiting for their three daily match credits or whatever, so we pay to accelerate our gameplay and create better teams, and that’s nice but it’s not really the point.
“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.”
It looks like Moore wants FIFA to infiltrate every area of our lives. If it happens they may need to include free divorce papers with every copy.
Source: MCV UK
GranTurismo-Disciple
Its ok saying a few years down the line they will stop using discs, but what about those that don’t have the net? What are they gonna do for a game?