The Current Status
Last October FIFA 17 was released and according to Eurogamer.net it broke a sales record to become the highest selling FIFA game in the UK and is set to further break records across the world.
The game has been praised for its realistic gameplay, photorealistic graphics, and attention to detail with digital representations of Premier League managers urging their teams on from the sidelines.
The Evolution
Now that players have the luxury of enjoying the closest experience to playing football without actually putting boots on, it is easy to forget just how far the genre has come.
The first ever football video game was NASL Soccer, which was released in 1979 by Intellvision. The game’s graphics were very basic with the players nothing more than multi-coloured stick men.
Speaking to the Telegraph, football gaming expert John O’Shea said that the game was marketed as “the closet thing to the real thing” which it was at the time.
Sensible Soccer (1992)
While many credit the FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) series as defining the football genre, the pioneering game was actually the 1992 game Sensible Soccer.
The game was the first of its kind that allowed players to play with clubs across the globe and even had managerial aspects such as player transfers.
In 1993, FIFA International Soccer was released and it was the beginning of the hugely successful FIFA series.
The biggest revolution for the football genre was the switch from the top down view to the isometric view. What Culture writes that the isometric view created a “television broadcast-esque atmosphere” that is still used today.
Electronic Artists (EA) also secured the use of the FIFA name that would give the series a huge advantage in the coming years.
FIFA World Cup 98
The watershed moment for the FIFA series was FIFA World Cup 98. The game switched from 2D to a 3D engine and was the first to create accurate football kits and stadiums that have become a staple of the FIFA series.
Branch of Science state that the popularity of the game was due to its close association to the World Cup 98.
Many developers across multiple platforms would try and replicate FIFA 98’s success by combining a real football tournament with gaming.
One recent example is the online gaming site Spin Genie who made a special tribute to this summer’s Euro 16 with their slot machine game Football: Champions Cup. Like FIFA 98 Spin Genie is capitalising on the football frenzy that surrounds the big international tournaments.
Pro Evolution Soccer (2001)
FIFA enjoyed dominance in the gaming industry without competition until the arrival of PES in 2001. The football series created by Japanese developer Konami would become FIFA’s rival.
The two franchises would split the gaming community between those who preferred FIFA’s official licenses against PES’s more realistic gameplay. Even to this day Manchester United is called Man Red in the PES series. FIFA would always outsell PES but the Japanese game would win the critical battle and gain cult status.
The Future of Football Video Games
Football games have started to evolve past their normal constructs with TIME Magazine reporting that Rocket League combines monster trucks and the beautiful game. The magazine writes that the game has received positive reviews due to its original gameplay and ideas.
Now that football games such as FIFA and PES have achieved almost photorealism graphics and lifelike gameplay the next couple of years might well take the sport to new places.
