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Madden NFL and NBA 2K have long been established names in the world of sports gaming, but lately a shift has been taking place in the market that has become harder and harder to ignore with each passing year. As improvements have been made to console gaming, and graphics and gameplay have become sharper and sharper, one title has clearly benefitted the most from all these innovations: FIFA. It may seem hard to believe, but, in the seventh-generation of consoles, soccer has steadily been capturing the interest of gamers with far greater success than football or basketball. With FIFA 14 set to drop tomorrow, it's likely that this trend will only continue.
We can talk about the sales numbers here, or about how much better the franchise has been at improving year-to-year than Madden, but those differences only account for a small portion of why FIFA has started to rise atop the gaming industry. To give you the full idea of how FIFA has executed its takeover, we outlined the The Best Reasons Why FIFA is the Best Sports Game Ever. Don't expect it to be giving up that title any time soon, either.
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Numbers don't lie.
When it comes down to it, you just can't argue with the facts. Last year, when FIFA 13 dropped, it was the top-selling video game in at least 40 countries. By the summer, the title had sold 14.5 million copies. For comparison's sake, Madden 25 was only able to move one million units in its launch week this year. FIFA 13 more than quadrupled that number with 4.5 million sold. Need we say more? With anticipation heavy for the next chapter in the FIFA series, there seems to be no reason why FIFA 14 couldn't best the records set by its predecessor.
The seemingly endless number of leagues and clubs to choose from.
Getting to play as any NFL, NCAA, NBA, NHL, or MLB squad that you like is nice, but their numbers pale in comparison to the amount of teams that you're able to take to the pitch in FIFA. Of course, that's what happens when you have the whole world to choose from as opposed to one continent. Allowing you to play in leagues anywhere from Australia to South Korea to the United States, FIFA can keep you occupied for hours simply on the strength of its variety. So what if the Saudi Arabian Pro League sucks? It's just nice to have the option, y'know? Oh, and when you get bored with that, don't worry, because you still have international teams to check out. Better clear your schedule for the week.
The loading screens.
Loading screens are usually such a drag. We're just sitting around, waiting for that minute or two to get to the game action, not doing anything particularly fun, important or productive. FIFA changed that, though. In these games, the loading and start screens can almost be as addictive as the actual contests themselves. Letting you practice shots, skill moves, and passing, these interludes serve as a practice mode made E-Z, preparing you for the pitch in ways that will actually help your game. Feeling nervous about your next match-up? Get a few warm-up shots in before the clock starts and you have to start doing it for real. Or maybe work on that breakaway move you've been trying to perfect. Hey, it beats reading random trivia, right?
It's poised to win the next-gen console battle.
It's hard to argue that the Madden and NBA Live or 2K franchises have ruled sports gaming for awhile now. From the N64 to the PS3, these two series have had their hands in every pot, and accounted for the majority of the market share in sports gaming. However, in the seventh-generation, we also saw a gradual shift toward FIFA that culminated in its absolute domination of sales for the Xbox 360 and PS3 these past few years. As soccer continues to grow in the U.S., expect that momentum to carry over to the Xbox One and the PS4. There's no doubt that every sports game will have a place in the world of eighth-generation consoles, but most all of them will still be eating FIFA's dust.
Player movement and controls are more realistic to FIFA than any other game.
Just one extra touch on a soccer ball can be the difference between a breakaway or a change in a possession, which is to say, in order for a soccer game to be good, it needs to be able to account for this level of precision. On top of that, with how many jukes and skill moves players can add to their repertoire in real life, the game also needs to have a comparable level of creativity in its own control system. With FIFA you get all that, and more.
Soccer is a game totally focused on fluid, continuous motion, and year by year, FIFA has only improved on smoothing out the rougher edges of its virtual imitation. While baseball, basketball and football all have rougher, stop-and-go aspects to their games, soccer was made for the next-gen improvements that have been ironing out the creases in sports gaming for the past few years.
The online game play.
The online options that FIFA offers makes its entire head-to-head package the best in all of sports gaming. In FIFA 13 we were given a variety of ways to go up against friends and strangers across the world, whether it was for an international friendly or a match-up between Ultimate Teams. Now, with FIFA 14 on the horizon, EA has added a new co-op season mode to the mix, allowing you to grab a club and a friend to face-off against another online duo as you all try to advance your teams to the top of the table. Never has competitive sports gaming been made this varied or seamless.
The NHL doesn't reach a wide enough audience.
Low key, the NHL video game franchise has actually been one of EA's best for the past few years. However, the fact that barely anyone knows this is also the series' biggest issue. Ever since its first lockout in 2004, the NHL has suffered from some major image problems in North America, and lost much of its casual fanbase in the wake of the 2004-05 season's cancellation. This is a shame because, if NHL was able to pull in as large an audience as FIFA does, then the game would definitely be a viable competitor to its soccer counterpart.
Position and rule-wise, there are a lot of similarities between soccer and hockey, and what's even better about hockey is its wildly physical aspect that lets us get the best of both the soccer and American football worlds: finesse and violence. However, so long as hockey continues to fall farther and farther into the niche interests of American sports fans, the NHL titles will remain woefully underrated. This is yet another reason why Gary Bettman absolutely sucks.
The positions are more unique from one another than other sports.
The difference between soccer and sports like football and basketball is that, in the latter, the action is always centered around the ball. Every player travels up and down the field of play, moving as the ball moves. However, in soccer, positions are more about occupying a certain zone. As such, this creates a whole different emphasis on position-to-position battles, and makes each player take on their own level of importance.
Whereas in an NBA game you could put Melo at point guard or LeBron at center, in FIFA you'd have a much more difficult time at winning if you decided to put Messi in on defense. Likewise, your experience playing as a goalkeeper will, obviously, be totally different than how it would be playing as a striker. In the end, this is what makes FIFA a more detailed, nuanced experience than other sports games. While Madden and NBA games are more focused on a team level, FIFA succeeds at creating a unique feel to both the individual and team dynamic.
Pro Evolution Soccer hasn't been able to keep up.
Like the Madden and NFL 2K battle of the early-to-mid-2000s, FIFA and Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer have gone head-to-head for years to see who can deliver the best soccer game money can buy. Like 2K before it, though, Pro Evolution is clearly fighting a losing battle. Simply put, the game has failed to be as innovative, well-made, or expansive as its EA counterpart. Even in its best year—that being PES 13—the series failed to stack up against FIFA, and with licensing only becoming a bigger and bigger issue for the little brother franchise, it doesn't appear that FIFA will have any reason to be concerned about keeping soccer's gaming crown for the years to come. Oh, and the fact that they won't be publishing PES 14 on the Xbox One or the PS4? Are they even trying to compete anymore?
FIFA Ultimate Team.
Ultimate Team is one of FIFA's most popular, beloved and imitated features, allowing you to build up a squad of the top footballers ever by buying, trading, and auctioning off player cards for more talent. The option is an original to FIFA but has since been used in EA's other gaming franchises. However, none have caught on with the feature as well as FIFA. With the upcoming Legends mode in FIFA 14—which will allow you to add all-time greats like Pele, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, and others to your dream team—expect the gap that FIFA has made against its competition to only become wider.
The goal celebrations.
In Madden or NBA 2K, scoring a touchdown or hitting a basket is as easy as counting 1-2-3. But with FIFA it's actually very possible to go through an entire game without putting the ball into the net. So when you finally do lace one into the upper 90, you should be able to celebrate accordingly, right? Right. And EA has never slacked in delivering some of the most hilarious and creative goal scoring celebrations out there. Whether you're blowing kisses, or doing the robot, you'll be hard-pressed to run out of ways to brag about your latest score. The feature has seen more and more play in Madden in recent years but, c'mon, will anything the players do in that game really be able to beat the peeing dog?
The soundtrack.
In certain years, Madden and NCAA Football have been complemented by some of the absolute worst soundtracks in gaming history. For instance, NCAA Football 06 was a strange, unsavory blend of early '90s indie rock and hip-hop, with some no-name garbage thrown in between. Meanwhile, Madden has been responsible for the creation of so many clunky, self-referential rap songs that you can only wonder how much those guys must've been paid to figure out what rhymes with "Madden" and "EA." These collections have not aged well, to say the least.
FIFA, on the other hand, has always kept a fresh, contemporary soundtrack for their games and, in keeping with this trend, the latest game will feature bands like CHVRCHES, Nine Inch Nails, and Vampire Weekend. C'mon, that sounds a whole lot better than Ludacris or Killer Mike trying to rap about sacking a quarterback, doesn't it?
Madden is too repetitive year-to-year.
Year in, and year out, gamers have long had beef with the nearly unchanged product that EA shills out to us in form of Madden NFL. Granted, it's difficult for any sports game to completely change its stripes but, fair or not, Madden is the one that has gained the reputation for being particularly unremarkable with its annual re-up. With FIFA, though, buying its latest iteration feels like a necessity. We've come to expect some sort of noticeable difference in how realistic the game feels, its new features, or available teams. Let's be honest: out of any sports game, Madden will continue to be the most viable threat to FIFA's hold on the sports gaming market for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, though, as the years go by, this once-beloved football franchisecontinues to only get staler and staler.
Soccer is more widely recognized globally than either football or basketball.
This reason is fairly obvious. To us, it might seem like a no-brainer that Madden should be sitting atop the sports gaming heap, but for nearly everyone else in the world FIFA reigns supreme. Why is that? Well, because soccer has more global popularity than any sport known to man. And in terms of longevity, you can almost be certain that it's going to outlast a sport that's as punishing and dangerous as American football.
Meanwhile, baseball, basketball, and hockey all have legs of their own in different parts of the world but, at the end of the day, the language that transcends every border belongs to soccer. It's only taken FIFA this long to blow up because American game developers and gaming audiences weren't yet up to speed on the sport. Now that soccer is beginning to take roots in the States, FIFA will only further its dominance of the market.
Its impact goes beyond video games.
What's so important about FIFA is that it helped to usher in a new sport to the landscape of American entertainment. Yes, stars like David Beckham helped bring name-brand recognition to MLS, but it's undeniable that, as interest has steadily began to pick up in the past decade toward international soccer, so too have the sales of EA's finest gaming franchise. And it makes sense. In the case of international soccer, it's nearly impossible for American audiences to ever see a live contest involving any of our favorite Spanish or English clubs. With the help of FIFA, though, that gap becomes somewhat bridged. By controlling, managing, and winning with them, we're able to feel the connection with the players that European fans have had for decades and, as a result, our virtual interest in the game has become real. In 10 years, when soccer has further usurped hockey (and perhaps even baseball) as one of our nation's favorite pasttimes, count FIFA as one of the primary instigators of that movement.
