Does Football Need the FIFA Game Series to be a Faithful Adaptation?

FIFA has always aimed to strive for realism in its console games. You want to feel the sweat of the players, hear the roar of the crowd, feel the thrill of the win. But is that really the best way to go with the franchise? We break down why the FIFA games could do with some absurdity, and why it shouldn’t.

The argument for

Over the years, with game after game released, the concept of what the player is getting out of the FIFA games changed. Initially, with the early games only offering what the tech of the time could, you were just hoping to play a game of football without having to leave the house, and yet, today, the strategy is the main focus, where you’re more likely to see yourself in the manager’s shoes than the players’.

Therefore, every little detail has to be correct. Every year the FIFA games boast about how they’ve got Harry Kane’s hair just right or they’ve nailed Cristiano Ronaldo’s distinct run. It’s small things but players will appreciate it as a more realistic football player avatar, with the same skillset as the real players, will allow them to put together a team, train and play them as though they are going through the FIFA World Championship on their own.

The detail is important to players who prefer the strategy side of things. Rather than playing a friendly game to pass the time, they’re playing the long haul, looking to be in control of every single decision from who could go off field and come on, to strategies for winning and the full use of a real player’s skill set.

The argument against

There’s ultimately no harm in it. Unlike the likes of platforms like ggpoker.com, which, when it comes to its online poker rooms, would benefit its players greatly to stay as realistic as possible, football doesn’t need to be realistic. Poker players could benefit from seeing their opponent’s faces in order to spot tells and determine a style of playing, but football doesn’t need to rely on such tiny details.

If you were to replace that finely detailed avatar of Ronaldo with Mr. Blobby, there would be no change to the game. You might have some laughs added to the game, and the result might be some mix of FIFA and Street Fighter, but the mechanics would stay the same. You aren’t really controlling Ronaldo, who is subject to injury, motivation, and other external circumstances, but an avatar can do exactly what it’s programmed to do. If you want your Mr. Blobby to run like Ronaldo, it can.

The middle ground

There is, however, a middle ground to be found here and it’s an argument that’s more commonly heard in the battle royale, MMORPG genres of gaming. Players shouldn’t be given any unfair advantage.

Gaming as a whole went through an experimental phase of asking players to pay for loot that would give them an advantage in the game. What this ultimately resulted in was some players simply paying to get boost on top of boost, leaving those who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for a boost “dying” with one shot or swipe of a sword. Players were not happy and expressed so, calling this way of doing things “evoking a class system in gaming”.

The middle ground that the gaming industry landed on was to offer only cosmetic bonuses for money. New armour, skins on weapons, new hairstyles, settlement building options, etc. but no extra skills that could be used as an advantage.

In order to keep the “beautiful” in the beautiful game, FIFA games might have to stick to keeping their skills as realistic as possible. But they can have fun elsewhere if they want to.