FIFA | Code Like It's 198x

FIFA International Soccer showed football from an isometric angle, with the pitch running diagonally across the screen. Edge admitted in its 1993 review that the view made the game slower, but said it also allowed “a lot more player detail”, overhead kicks and back-heels, and a crowd that reacted to play: hit the crossbar, the magazine said, and “the roar immediately and seamlessly turns into a moan”. EA Sports put the governing body’s name on the box, and the game became the start of a yearly series that carried the name for almost 30 years.

Fast facts

First game: FIFA International Soccer, Mega Drive, December 1993 in the UK.
Developer: Extended Play for the first game; by 1995 EA’s own Canadian studio, EA Canada.
Publisher: Electronic Arts, under the EA Sports label.
Reception: Edge 8/10 for the Mega Drive original.
Sales: more than 325 million copies by 2022, by EA’s count.
Ultimate Team: added as a download for FIFA 09.
Last under the FIFA name: FIFA 23 (September 2022). The series continued as EA Sports FC, starting with EA Sports FC 24 in September 2023.

The first game

Edge reviewed the Mega Drive cartridge in December 1993, the month of its UK release, and credited it to the developer Extended Play. It set the game against Kick Off and Sensible Soccer. Where Sensible Soccer gave “an adrenaline rush through pure speed and head-to-head competitiveness”, FIFA gave “a real feeling of being there by setting the scene”. Players were urged to plug the Mega Drive into an amplifier to hear the crowd’s chants. One player against the computer, Edge admitted, was not as much fun as Sensible Soccer, mostly because of the difference in speed, but with EA’s new Four Way Play adaptor four people could play at once. It gave the game eight out of ten.

Not everyone was won over. When the PC version arrived in 1994, Gary Penn in PC Gamer praised “the choice and use of the isometric viewpoint” but complained that the players “look and feel as though they are running on ice”. The Super Nintendo version that year advertised play for up to five people through Hudson Soft’s Super MultiTap adaptor, a new pass-power meter and “30 all new chants”.

The public bought it anyway. In the summer of 1994 EA’s advertising called FIFA International Soccer “the UK’s biggest and fastest selling videogame of 1993”, with “over half a million FIFA fanatics” across Europe and 2,000 frames of player animation. Behind the scenes the team was already looking at new hardware: Edge reported in April 1994 that the Canadian programmers behind the Mega Drive game had spent two months building a mock 3DO version “just to see what they could do”, and that EA gave them the go-ahead as soon as it saw the demo.

A new edition every season

The series became yearly, each edition numbered by year. According to Nintendo Magazine in 1997, FIFA 95 on the Mega Drive remained the best-selling version to that date, and outsold Donkey Kong Country to become the Christmas number one.

FIFA 96 was the first big rebuild. The Official UK PlayStation Magazine explained in 1995 that it came from EA Canada, which had developed “Virtual Stadium” technology: a 3D stadium with a roving camera that could view the match from any angle and cut away when a player’s view was blocked. The players were 3D models animated by a system EA called Motion Design. Real footballers were filmed, and the movement was reworked by hand. The magazine called it a hybrid, not true motion capture, and the motion capture entry explains why EA held back from full capture. The PlayStation version had 12 international leagues and over 3,000 real player names. That was the pattern for what followed: each new edition added leagues, teams, kits and names. The same article reported that EA Sports had sold 20 million games in its first four years, and named FIFA International Soccer alongside John Madden Football and PGA Tour Golf as its most successful series.

The yearly editions kept selling. Edge reported that over Christmas 1996 FIFA 97, “despite its obvious failings”, beat Command & Conquer: Red Alert and Tomb Raider to the top of the UK charts.

FIFA and its rival

The strongest challenge came from Konami. On the Nintendo 64 some developers preferred its International Superstar Soccer 64. “I always thought the Konami one was far better,” Karl Hilton of Free Radical Design told Edge in 1999, “but you read the sales figures and you find out that FIFA sold four times as many. Is it down to a licence?” Konami had two football teams: Osaka made ISS, while a Tokyo team made the more realistic games that became Pro Evolution Soccer, as Hyper explained in 2002. In January 2003 Edge’s columnist RedEye complained that “every year, every Christmas, Fifa sold so unbelievably well”, and claimed that Pro Evolution Soccer 2 had beaten it in its first week of sales on the PlayStation 2.

Ultimate Team

The series’ most profitable addition came later. FIFA Ultimate Team, Edge explained in 2010, began as “a downloadable add-on to the boxed versions of FIFA 09 and FIFA 10, allowing players to build up fantasy squads of the world’s best players”. Players could earn new players by winning online, “but they can also purchase booster packs to quickly build their rosters”.

The end of the name

In May 2022 EA and FIFA announced that their partnership of about 30 years was over. FIFA 23, released at the end of September 2022, was the last game in the series to carry the name, and the agreement ended on 31 December 2022. At the launch of FIFA 23, EA put the series’ sales at more than 325 million copies. The series kept its real leagues and player names but lost the FIFA brand and World Cup rights, and continued as EA Sports FC, starting with EA Sports FC 24 in September 2023.

Sources

Edge issue 3, December 1993, p. 96: FIFA International Soccer review (Mega Drive; developer Extended Play; UK release December; isometric 3D; the crowd; Four Way Play; 8/10).
Edge issue 7, April 1994: EA’s Canadian team and the mock 3DO version of FIFA.
SuperPlay issue 19, May 1994: EA Sports advertisement for the Super Nintendo FIFA International Soccer (five players with the Super MultiTap; pass-power meter; “30 all new chants”).
Amiga Format issue 61, July 1994, and CU Amiga, August 1994: EA Sports advertisement (“the UK’s biggest and fastest selling videogame of 1993”; “over half a million FIFA fanatics”; 2,000 frames of animation).
PC Gamer (UK) issue 9, August 1994: FIFA International Soccer review by Gary Penn (PC, £39.99).
Official UK PlayStation Magazine issue 1, November 1995: FIFA Soccer 96 preview (EA Canada; Virtual Stadium; Motion Design; 12 leagues; over 3,000 player names; EA Sports’ 20 million sales).
Edge issue 43, March 1997: FIFA 97 top of the charts over Christmas 1996.
Nintendo Magazine issue 56, May 1997: FIFA 95 on the Mega Drive outselling Donkey Kong Country at Christmas.
Edge issue 72, June 1999: interview with Free Radical Design (Karl Hilton on FIFA and Konami’s N64 football game).
Edge issue 119, January 2003: RedEye column on Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and FIFA.
Hyper issue 104, June 2002, p. 66: ISS 2 review; Konami’s Osaka team (the ISS designers) and Tokyo team (the Evolution games that became Pro Evolution Soccer).
Edge issue 219, October 2010: EA feature (FIFA Ultimate Team as an add-on to FIFA 09 and FIFA 10; booster packs).
“EA blows the final whistle on 30-year FIFA partnership”, TechRadar, 10 May 2022 (web, secondary). https://www.techradar.com/news/ea-blows-the-final-whistle-on-30-year-fifa-partnership
“Gamers to bid farewell to FIFA franchise after 30 years”, AFP via Tech Xplore, 29 September 2022 (web, secondary): the launch of FIFA 23; more than 325 million copies sold; EA Sports FC from 2023. https://techxplore.com/news/2022-09-gamers-farewell-fifa-franchise-years.html
“EA Sports FC”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): the agreement ending on 31 December 2022; EA Sports FC 24 released 29 September 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Sports_FC