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EA Makes Minor Tweaks To FIFA 12 For the Wii, Releases It As FIFA 13
An article at Nintendo Gamer highlights how Electronic Arts put almost no work into the latest Wii release of their FIFA soccer game franchise, but didn't hesitate to push it out the door anyway. Side-by-side screenshots show the Wii version of FIFA 12 got some minor graphical tweaks — a different splash screen, slightly modified logos, different colored socks on the players — before being re-released as FIFA 13. From the article:
"This is something that needs to be highlighted, because while it would be easy to pass it off and say 'meh, it’s just the Wii version,' the fact remains that this game does still sell relatively well. This isn’t guesswork – as journalists we receive confidential sales figures and though we’re legally bound not to reveal those figures, we can at least say with confidence that FIFA 12 did pretty well for a Wii game this close to the console’s death. The Wii U version of FIFA 13 will no doubt be a fantastic game, since it’ll share a lot (if not all) of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions’ features. The 3DS version is a solid improvement over last year’s effort, and worth a look if you’re into some handheld football action. This, however – a £30 roster update – is unacceptable."
n/t
money
Disappointing football game if just a tweaked older one .... I think that's happened before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Cup_Carnival
http://www.ign.com/articles/1998/01/01/olympic-hockey-nagano-98
"We'll post a new review when Midway releases a new game."
Isn't WoW subscription based? You pay for a new game every month!
It's not like the game of soccer has changed much in a year.
It apparently changes enough that the old FIFA game is as as incompatible in online play with the new FIFA game as Quake III: Arena is with Unreal Tournament.
It's why I don't buy these games often. Once you play one year, you've played every year. It takes several years for them to come out with something really new. This isn't FIFA either: NFL, MLB, etc. is the same.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
People buy Electronic Arts games because they want football games. Electronic Arts owns the exclusive rights to make video games based on football leagues. The last time I checked, EA had multi-year exclusive licenses to FIFA, NFL, AFL, and NCAA.
Seriously, these game barely change from one year to the next anyway. If you buy one every 5 years, you will see the difference, but that's pretty much it.
asshattery
Why, technically, can't rosters be updated separately from the engine?
Whoa, you are talking about taking food out of the mouths of EA shareholders, ultimately damaging the economy and leading to the end of the world as we know it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Personally I don't care what it says on the box or what color the uniforms are -- I care more about the gameplay.
Is that an unusual concept in sports games?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
This might have surprised me 10 years ago. Now? No chance. Isn't this the same business model EA already follows with it's other franchises? Make a few incremental changes, bump the number +1, release to the masses...
"Women. Can't live with 'em. Pass the beer nuts." -Norm
Why, technically, can't rosters be updated separately from the engine?
Obviously they can be, but that's not what you're asking. What I suspect you are really interested in is why those roster updates can't be released for free, or at least very cheap.
The answer is licensing. If you want to make a sports game using real team names, and real player names, and real player likenesses, then you need to pay a lot of money to the respective leagues and player associations. EA and 2K can't afford to release free roster updates every year while still paying those licensing fees.
Well first of all, programming the game isn't free, so even with fake teams, it wouldn't be free. Additionally, it's not like the NFL (or MLB or whoever) charges EA some amount of money per license sold. The terms would be more like EA pays X million dollars in exchange for exclusive rights for Y years. Given those terms, it doesn't make sense to sell versions of the game without the real rosters.
And if you do that, then gay people will get married, and then everyone will be on drugs, and we'll be just like Europe, where everyone is unhappy, unhealthy, and the streets run with blood!
There have over the years been various unlicenced sports game, sometimes where players can create their own roster. The public however are usually too lazy to want to do their own data entry.
Also, how is the business model of 'rosters for money' much different than what they do? Sure you go to store and buy a shiny disk and in most of the versions they try and improve some parts of the game, but ultimately the business question of whether or not people would rather a disk or download from the web seems to have landed very much on the side of people preferring to buy a disk for the moment.
Also, as much as EA and activision and the rest of us would love to find a way to sell our games without retailers the public still do a lot of casual shopping and having a game for free means it won't get carried in stores. Running a storefront isn't free. Nor would be distributing a game for 2 or 3 dollars, and at some point your base distribution cost makes it hard to justify a game much less than 10 bucks at retail, and if you're charging 10 bucks you may + a roster you may as well just sell the damn game.
Cat and Dogs, living together!
Unlimited rice pudding!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Who said EA had packaged an engine update with this?
Plus, even after both games have been out for over three years now, they can still be played, there are still servers for them.
Is it still possible to play FIFA 10 online?
I stopped buying EA Sports games after buying Tiger Woods 11 in mid 2011' only for the online features to be removed before the year was out, presumably to encourage buyers on to Tiger Woods 12. I expect more than 6 months of value from a game.
Your optimism strikes me like junkmail addressed to the dead.