It's another Fifa blog

Yare Yare Daze

It's quite interesting to think about the proliferation of the Fifa brand in the gaming world considering the actual, genuine lack of effort that each one of those entries exhibit. Typically such common and flagrant lack of quality assurance would have some sort of knockback on sales or review scores, but most reputable review sites are too scared to bad-mouth any publisher with weight behind them and most regular consumers of Fifa games are too dense to realise that they spent money on the same game they bought last year. All of this would make sense if, like with American Football and basketball, there was no actual alternative and folk who wanted to play a modern game featuring their favourite sport could put themselves in a metaphorical no-win state, but even that's not the case with football. We have 'Pro Evolution Soccer' which, by most accounts, has been a superior and more accurate play experience for years. But Fifa has dominated the headlines, the IRL banner space, the team licenses and random videos on Youtube featuring actual players trying out their virtual selves. So if you're one of the ones tearing out their hair and going all Jessie Pinkman; ("They can't keep getting away with it!") they can, they will, and we as a society are enabling them.

But even when you give a company all the leeway in the world to get away with literally the bare minimum and clap them on like armies of brainwashed seals, there is such thing as a bridge too far. Every now and then even the most die hard of sports games "supporters" (see: 'shills') have to hang their head in defeat and admit that there's no defending their lords and saviours here. In times like these I can't say I find myself actually proud of these communities, because their years of dismissiveness has hurt the rest of gaming time and time again, but I do nod my head in approval that finally some vague form of reckoning has arrived. And for EA and Fifa that day of reckoning seems to have come in the form of their truly shocking support for the Nintendo Switch in the past few years. (Or lack thereof)

It's no secret that the Nintendo Switch is technologically inferior to the modern day consoles of the gaming world, that's a given. It's a smaller piece of hardware that is designed to be accessible and work with a gimmick, so concessions have to be taken somewhere down the line. Also, it is a Nintendo product, and those guys haven't been at the forefront of gaming technology for a good many years now; and that's a position I can only assume they do not resent given that they've never taken great strides to amend it. But with that inferiority comes issue in times of parity for the sorts of games that squeeze for yearly releases that forever scrape upon the latest tech; as the Switch usually cannot run such tech. Most games simply choose not to go for a Switch launch, or some, like CDPR, call upon the dark wizards from beyond the abyss to make Witcher 3 for Switch happen; what EA settled on was the worst of all worlds.

You see, all the way back for Fifa 19, EA created a separate Switch title which was inferior in most everyway but at least delivered the core experience that people were looking for. It ran on the engine that EA used before the Frostbite, (my god, they've been using that so long I can hardly remember the days before) and it looked fine considering. Not a revolution, but a step. Most Switch players at the time could probably be happy at the fact they got the game and were looking forward for the next title to get closer to the big console counterparts, but this is EA we're talking about so of course that's not what happened. Instead, for Fifa 20 the Switch players were greeted with a game called 'Fifa 20 legacy edition'. A game which, for all intents and purposes, was literally just Fifa 19 again with no added features and merely a rooster update. (Oh, and with all the microtransactions from the previous year wiped clean, of course. Got to make those FUT dollars, afterall.)

This, needless to say, was a slap in the face to literally every single person who dared to be a football fan on Switch. I mean sure, at least the game functioned, (unlike 2K's Switch Sport games from around that time) but you know there's something especially wrong with your proceedings when the best thing folk can say is "at least the game cartridge didn't literally explode in the console." Yet as the majority of sports fans didn't have a Switch but were PlayStation or Xbox players, EA just didn't care and offered nothing in the way of an apology for not even trying to make something happen. Most outlets didn't even bother review the thing, leaving it to only the most thorough of review sites to pick at with their morbid curiosity. There's no more depressing a summary of EA's modern business model.

And we are gathered here again, dear readers, to talk about the fact that EA, once again, did the same thing with their Nintendo Switch version of Fifa. That's right, this year's Fifa 21 'Legacy' is a roster update to Fifa 20 'Legacy' which, if you're keeping track, was a roster update to Fifa 19. (It's like poetry; it rhythms) This marks the third year in a row that EA have repacked basically the same game to sell it at full price and you have to start wondering if this is breaking some trade commission laws or something. (But I'll bet it isn't) This is such a blatant travesty that even IGN, a company renowned for kotowing before every powerful publisher in the industry, had a scathing review go viral for the fact that it's author pointedly decided to copy and paste their review of last year's Fifa 20 on Switch, reasoning how that is exactly what EA did with the game. (Although they did amend the score by knocking it down another point or two.)

Now admittedly, EA are big enough not to care about a single bad review for a game they didn't even invest any capital towards so it's not like IGN have put their necks out in front of the guillotine for this little act of rebellion, but any sort of vague mainstream recognition of EA's shady practises is worth praising. These are the sorts of people who actively go out of their way, year after year, to redefine what it is to be an industry pariah. (And do it with style) In light of the sheer truckloads of money that these guys make every year off of their football franchise alone there is, and let me clear about this, no ethical excuse for this level of laziness. None at all. If this is the bar of quality that EA have deemed worthy of the Switch, then Switch fans would be better off if EA released no game at all. Then again, the entire gaming industry would be better off if EA never released another football game, so I guess literally nothing has changed.

I know I rag on EA quite often on this blog, but it's just truly shocking how these people can still manage to surprise me with their lazy/greedy antics year after year. I mean the 'legacy edition' thing was expected but to make a 'legacy edition' ontop of that? I've said it before but this guys are pantomime greedy corporate scumbags, it's unreal! What makes it worse is the fact that publicly, every now and then, EA try to struggle against their perception in the public eye; whilst simultaneously pulling stunts like this that bolster such opinions. (Its maddening!) The sooner that they just give up the pretence and rename their company to 'Ethically Amoral', the better in my opinion. Oh, and for the love of god stop buying sports games!