You may not have noticed, but the FIFA series has emerged in the last year as a very real challenger to the videogaming football throne. Last year’s FIFA 08 offered the definitive football package and EURO 2008 serves as a stop-gap before this year’s installment, further pushing the game towards online play and embellishing the game’s mechanics with some extra polish. We spoke to the game’s producer Simon Humber about the new game and where the series is heading.
A stadium, looking lovely, yesterday.
IGN: Do you think England’s absence in the tournament will affect the game’s sales over here?
Simon Humber: I think there’s a certain percentage of people that buy tournament games because they’re engaged in the tournament. I’d like to think there’s a bigger percentage of people who are football gamers who just want the best game on the market at the time. Given that it’s six months from the last FIFA and PES, and six months to the next FIFA and PES, if you’ve got a better game out you can play that for six months, then I’d like to think people will buy it for that reason.
IGN: A great feature of FIFA 08 was the roster update, and the persistent updates and connectivity to the real football world. Is that something that’s going to be a feature of EURO 2008?
Simon Humber: We’ve got one update coming, which is for when all the squads are announced. England were difficult to decide which players to put in, because Capello has come in and changed the make up of the squad a bit. At the moment we’ve left it as McLaren’s team, and when the update comes we’re going to change it to Capello’s team.
IGN: The series is moving to online and social play. How important is that to FIFA’s future?
Simon Humber: Critical. The time of just playing the game by yourself and not being connected to anyone is vanishing, especially with football because it’s such a social environment. As we build technology we’re constantly aware of where that should go in terms of design and being able bring more people into football and making the experience better for them.
IGN: This game is a halfway house between FIFA 08 and FIFA 09, and as a full price release how would you allay fears of people who may be skeptical of buying the game due to its shorter shelf life?
Simon Humber: Personally, I’d buy it because it’s the best game on the market. I realise that the tournament itself ends in June, but come July 1 it’ll still be the best game on the market. We’ve got feedback from people who’ve played the demo and gone back to FIFA 08 and said they couldn’t play it anymore, because they’ve got used to the increased responsiveness.
IGN: Will there ever be a point where the big tournaments could become integrated into one FIFA package?
Simon Humber: FIFA and Euro could never come together because you’ve got FIFA and UEFA, who both want their own game on the market. FIFA and World Cup in theory could, but to do that you’d need to include so much that’s special about the World Cup. FIFA’s got a challenge already because you’ve got so many cultural differences from different leagues around the world that everyone wants you to work in, they want South American football to feel different, they want Southern European football to feel different to Northern European football, so they all really belong in their own products so we can do them justice.
IGN: How do you assign player attributes?
Simon Humber: We’ve got a department in Vancouver, and one in Germany as well, called the data collection department, and there’s a bunch of guys there who run and maintain the database, and there’s a community of editors. There’s a community around the world that gives us the stats, and it’s up to the guys to balance it to make sure that players aren’t under or overrated, we always have an eye on the next big player as well.
IGN: So England are dreadful?
Simon Humber: Individually they’re good, but the chemistry’s not great.
IGN: Congratulations on getting the Peter Crouch robo-dance in there, but we’re hoping that Robbie Earnshaw’s somersault and machine gun combo will be in there…
Simon Humber: I’m afraid not.
