EA Sports Creating FIFA World a Free Downloadable Soccer Game for PC

[Shawn Zipay]

In what seems to be an effort to apologize to PC gamers for not wanting to bring the new EA Sports Ignite engine to the new PC sports titles, EA Sports is instead making a free downloadable soccer title for the platform.

The game is going to be called FIFA World and will feature "EA Sports FIFA HD console gameplay, FIFA Ultimate Team and Seasons, and over 30 officially licensed leagues."

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot the most important bit here. It's only coming out in Brazil and Russia.

FIFA World will be available free* to soccer fans and gamers in Brazil and Russia with a broadband internet connection and an average spec laptop computer or desktop personal computer. The new game will be built around FIFA Ultimate Team, the most popular game mode within EA SPORTS FIFA that reflects the best recent real-world performances of the world’s best players. In Ultimate Team, fans have the freedom to build their own unique squads to play their own style of soccer, re-shaping their teams based on the real-world performances of their favorite players.

Soccer fans across Russia and Brazil are invited to register now to participate*** in the closed beta development and testing of FIFA World by visiting www.easportsfifaworld.com. The commercial launch of the game is scheduled for November 2013.

“Brazil and Russia are priority markets for EA SPORTS and especially our FIFA brand. We are excited to bring to these markets a custom-built, free-to-play PC experience developed around FIFA Ultimate Team,” said Matt Bilbey, Senior Vice President and Group General Manager, EA SPORTS. “FIFA World will be a fun new way to play FIFA for new fans.”

Well, I guess all of our Brazilian and Russian readers will be thrilled to hear about this? Look for it in November.

[K-16]

So Brazil and Russia gets FIFA World, while Korea, Southeast Asia, and mainland China gets FIFA Online 3. Hmm... That's a lot of work for EA to cherry pick their markets with individually customized and localized products, and this is just for the FIFA product line. As much as I want to say I'm disappointed that EA is giving people like me the finger (I play FIFA on PC since Road to World Cup 98), I can't blame them and even feel impressed that they are putting this much work into giving each high-demand region a product uniquely designed for them.

North America isn't a high demand region when it comes to PC/Nintendo sales, so really, flipping me off was pretty much the right thing to do. All I can do is apologize and watch another gaming option fade away into obscurity. Kind of like Ace Attorney if idiotic gamers are protesting the eShop exclusive release by not buying it; like EA, Capcom will look at the bottom line (sales numbers) and ignore the reasons contributing to the bottom line, leading to decisions that only hurt us more.

I think the real shocker isn't what EA is doing, but how we responded to EA. EA sold FIFA 12 lightly patched and rebranded into FIFA 13 for the Nintendo Wii. However, it sold more than PC. The console EA hates outperformed the PC version by about 100,000 units in North America. Ouch, we dun goofed and gave EA the wrong message.

[Anarchy1]

If they have Ignite working on the One and PS4, how much effort is it really to get it working on the PC? I'm pretty disappointed that we won't be getting it. It makes me wonder if we will ever get it, or if they will just ignore PC for good.

[K-16]

Not really about effort, but rather about money spent on a platform nobody in North America buys for (even competitors suffered from PC sales). I would imagine like Nintendo consoles, they would eventually ignore it for good. The best you can hope for is a social media game like Facebook FIFA or something, but given how well The Sims series performed on there... It's a less than 40% chance of it happening. The next closest you can hope for is a mobile game (which will definitely happen) that can coincidently be played on PC either through emulation or through a web browser.

If and only if the North American market can convince EA that at least 100,000 people will play FIFA on PC, then EA will consider setting up North American servers for their Free To Play games (strangely two now), and maybe give us a copy and paste job of a PC port of their console games (don't expect bug fixes beyond showstoppers and expect console UI elements). Seriously, 20,000 units sold is just pathetic on our part.