EA Sports FC, formally known as FIFA has been an important and integral part of the soccer community. EA Sports releases a new game Every year with the latest updates, players, and teams.
The video game series has been dominant in this category for nearly two decades and continuously tops the sales charts for sport-related games. EA’s football franchise has captivated millions of players around the globe with its realistic gameplay, massive licensed teams, and addictively competitive modes like Ultimate Team.
In recent years however, The Franchise has declined in the eyes of average players and has become frustrating among members of the community. The grip it once had on gamers has begun to weaken, and signs of decline are becoming more apparent.
Mohamed Obied: EAFC Fanshawe Fuel Captain
“The game is not consistent. Sometimes it feels so good, sometimes it’s not. There’s new exploits, new bugs, new updates that breaks some stuff that was working”.
Mohamed Obied is the captain of the Fanshawe Fuel EAFC 25 team. As a pro player, his job is to play the game in competitions with competitors from all over Canada. Mohamed has been playing the game for years and notice the rapid decline of the game every new game that was released.
Mohamed attended the annual EAFC 25 tournament hosted once a month at Fanshawe College. After winning the entire tournament going undefeated in the process, he still had some concerns about the new game and it’s features.
“At the start of EAFC 25 gameplay was so heavy, servers were so bad no one wanted to play. Even pro players were saying that they weren’t gonna play this game until they fix their servers”.
Daniel is better known for his Youtube handle “Dagnal Diagonal” with 35 thousand subscribers. Daniel’s been creating content since 2015 however exploded onto the scene when he started making videos about the poor quality of EAs soccer game. Some of his top videos are “FIFA 17: the last good FIFA” with 900,000 views and “Why EAFC 24 Is A Bad Game” with 350,00 views.
Daniel has made his thoughts very clear about the game and how the declining nature has ruined the experience for thousands of avid players.
“It’s the start of a new FIFA. Brand new teams, everyone’s trying new things, it’s not last years FIFA which usually everyone is fed up with at that point”.
“Right now people are actually playing the way the game is intended and aren’t spamming crazy mechanics or parking the bus or doing all these things, but I know in about a month or so it’s gonna change”.
Daniel spoke about how in the early days of EAFC or FIFA, the game was incredibly fun to play and was especially fun watching at the pro level. These Pro games were watched by thousands of people through online streams but that community has died down in recent years.
” I’m not a pro so I can’t speak on there behalf but I know a lot of pros in the past, at least a couple of them have spoken out. I know there was an Interview with Tekkz during the middle of an event where someone asked how it felt he won either the whole tournament or the match and he just said actually no the games not good”.
Daniels biggest concern is the spending of FC Points which help you obtain better cards for your team. This has been a problem brought up a lot in the community as these packs are known to incentivize gamers to spend money for a chance to get lucky.
“It’s genuinely a huge, huge problem, because back in FIFA 13 14, 15, you could use Brazilian silvers and win games. You could use them for the entire whole season. It was still a thing back then, but maybe just not as relevant or as widespread. But now with there’s a promo every single week. Now people are going to be wanting to load up $10, $50, $100 worth of points in order to try to get these packs”.
April Laithwaite is an addiction counselor at CMHA Thames Valley District School Board. Aprils job is supporting people who struggle with addiction and want to make changes in their behavioral addiction. She specializes in gambling, hyper-sex and over technology use, including shopping.
April touched on the topic of EAFC 25 and the microtransactions that occur in the game and how it is affecting the youth of the day.
“I do see it often in my line of work, more often now than I did, say six or seven years ago, because there’s such a blur between the gambling line and the gaming line. So when we’re looking at loot boxes and we’re looking at in game purchases and micro transactions, we’re actually investing real money, and we might get a great return, or a great prize. maybe a really rare skin or a really rare weapon, or we might get something really kind of terrible. And it’s that, that’s what defines gambling, is when you risk something of value”.
April says the youth of today don’t recognize it as gambling and that it is very prevalent in the community. The biggest concern is how the youth of today are obtaining this money.
” A really big concern that parents have is the stealing of their credit cards, the taking of their credit cards, and they get this bill a month down the road, and there’s 200 and there’s $5,000 on there. Now that started to erode the relationship”.
EA Sports FC is in a precarious position. While it remains a dominant force in the world of sports gaming, the decline in fan satisfaction and the rise of competitors are clear warning signs. Without real improvements, EA Sports FC could continue losing fans, giving competitors a chance to take advantage of its mistakes.
