Trivia / FIFA Soccer

• Adored by the Network: FIFA is the series that EA cares the most about. When the development of Mass Effect: Andromeda was going through hurdles thanks to Bioware's unfamiliarity with the Frostbite engine, they weren't given the help of DICE, the developers who made the engine... because they were helping the FIFA team. The process repeated when Anthem faced the same issues, and EA once again instead had all staff who were familiar with Frostbite — including those who were already working at Bioware — moved to work on FIFA.
• Ascended Fanon: The inclusion of the Liga I from Romania in FIFA 20; prior, it was one of the most frequent additions of modders to the game. Compounded by the fact that the game was developed by EA Romania.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Outside of the U.S., it's essentially the biggest selling sports title EA Sports develops globally. To put it into perspective it easily doubles the sales of ''Madden on a yearly basis. Sales are usually north of 10 million copies these days. The popular mode Ultimate Team, heavily driven by micro-transactions to get an edge, now brings in around a billion dollars a year by itself. Unsurprisingly EA sought to quickly add the mode to its other sports franchises.
• Contractual Obligation Project: The various Legacy Editions can be seen as this, due to EA's deal with FIFA stipulating that each year's game must be released on all current (at the time) platforms.
• Creator Provincialism: Given most of the recent games are made by EA Canada, Canadian teams are usually overrated, and the BC Place in Vancouver is recreated in detail.
• Colbert Bump: Thanks to FIFA 15, "Walk" by Kwabs has become widely popular in Germany.
• Dueling Games: With Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer, to a point that, as the Noughties went on, both series cornered the football game market and turned it into a duopoly.
  • Not anymore, however: from mid-00's onwards, FIFA moved ahead of PES in both sales and critical acclaim, which led in part to the scrapping of the whole PES franchise and the creation of the free-to-play eFootball game, which is not directly competing with FIFA.
• Port Overdosed: Strangely, FIFA 14 became this before it was even released. It was announced for iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS, Windows, PS2 (although LATAM/Europe-exclusive), PS3, PS4, PSP, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Wii. Twelve platforms for near-simultaneous release. It may be the first game release ever that spanned three console generations from release. That said, it lacked a Wii U port despite FIFA 13 releasing for it, due to EA's infamous lack of interest in the platform.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sega shelled out a lot of money to make FIFA 95 exclusive to the Genesis, and had an option that would have made FIFA 96 exclusive to the Genesis, 32X and Saturn if they were willing to pay for it. When it came to actually making that decision, however, Sega supposedly only bothered looking at how 95 had performed in the USA — where the series generally sells the least, and where they were being outsold considerably by Nintendo, as opposed to Europe, where the sport is much more popular and where the Genesis (or Mega Drive) was curb-stomping the SNES in sales — and blew off the deal. 96 turned out to be a smash hit on nearly every console, and EA never made Sega or anyone else another exclusivity offer.
  • Cristiano Ronaldo was supposed to have a major role in the "Champions" story mode in 19 but his sudden transfer from Real Madrid to Juventus forced that plan to be scrapped.

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