FIFA - A Sports Game Empire

Many games have hit our shelves and dissipated into obscurity. Some titles have made huge profits in their era and exploded into the ether. However, sporting games such as NFL, FIFA, and other titles released by the gaming giant EA Sports have consistently stood the test of time. It's hard to conceive that the first FIFA game hit stores thirty years ago.

As of 2023, the franchise has sold over 250 million units and is a goliath of the soccer gaming industry. Regarding individual sports game markets, FIFA controls the lion's share of the soccer gaming sector. Pro Evolution Soccer is trailing light years behind in a distant second place. While it sells modestly well, its EA Sports adversary blows it out of the water.

FIFA 94 - Where It All Began

As sporting game dynasties go from strength to strength, their humble and formative years highlight how far they have traveled. FIFA 94 was a game that was way ahead of its time, but if you compare it to how FIFA looks today, it is very much a classic and retro installment and a relic of its time.

Before FIFA 94, soccer games operated with birds-eye views and clunky, rigid, block-like graphics. Although FIFA 94 was hardly the slick, highly technical, graphically flawless game we see today, it highlighted a marked improvement.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and companies that turn into multi-billion-dollar enterprises usually build over years and decades. For example, the first online casino games were developed in 1994, and it would have been a far cry from the sophisticated and immersive digital operations we see today. However, all Empires start small.

FIFA In The 21st Century

In the gaming world, FIFA is as big as it gets. Few titles can match the number of units sold and the longevity of FIFA. EA Sports has kept this title popular and relevant for four consecutive decades. However, a few components allowed FIFA to spiral in popularity, and it wouldn't be right to suggest that it was utterly EA Sports on its own.

Firstly, the highly innovative and game-changing PlayStation 1 console allowed a new generation of gamers to access an affordable and entertaining way to consume console games. As Sony themselves became a multi-billion-dollar corporation, this profit caused an avalanche of product designers, innovative PR, advertising, and funding to flow into the gaming sector.

The end product of these components is that the designed games are of even better quality while being released at quicker rates. As a result, the PlayStation 2 broke all the records that its predecessor set, and games like FIFA continued to be at the forefront of the gaming revolution.

In addition, Sony competed with technology giant Microsoft when the XBOX hit the shelves and started eating into the PlayStation's market share. This didn't make a difference for FIFA; they could sell the same game across two different consoles, which caused them to ship more units and aim their advertising at one market.

Pro Evolution Soccer

Konami developed a rival soccer game to FIFA in the 1990s. Originally titled Winning Eleven 7, Pro Evolution first had success in its native Japan. However, once they rebranded the game as Pro Evolution Soccer and released it across PlayStation 2 and XBOX consoles in the mid-2000s, FIFA finally had a piece of the competition.

One of the critical reasons FIFA still managed to ride this emergence of a new challenger was because they owned the rights to football stadiums, players, and teams. Pro Evolution Soccer 3, solely as a game, was a much better game offering than FIFA 2003, 2004, or 2005. However, players and critics commented heavily that barely any players or teams had image rights.

This led to quite a farcical collection of domestic club teams based on their natural counterparts but with distinct differences in player and club names. West London Blue as Chelsea is one of many examples that took the shine of a highly innovative game.

FIFA - Setting the Standard

This healthy competition caused FIFA to invest in a new model, design team, and graphic development section. However, as the 2010s unfolded, Pro Evo lost its market share. The game failed to advance past the highly innovative installment of Pro Evo 3 - sales of units reflected this gulf in quality and consumer preference.

In today's market, buoyed by the resurgence of new consoles such as the PlayStation 5, FIFA enjoys a colossal market share. It stands alone at the top of the pile and now features as the basis for some of the biggest eSports tournaments anywhere in the world.

Given it has survived so long at the top and fought off intense competition, it's hard to see them losing its grip as the world's premium soccer game for a long time. Moreover, with the solid financial backing of EA Sports and every image right under the sun, only EA Sports and FIFA itself could derail their market dominance.