Euro 2024: Why are there no more good soccer video games?
If you want to replay Euro 2024, you only have one real option: "EA FC 24", a rather mediocre soccer game. Why are there no good alternatives?
"EA FC 24" has been updated to the current European Championship standard.
(Image: Electronic Arts)
For EA, the anticipation of the European Championship in Germany is a great opportunity: a comprehensive European Championship update for "EA FC 24" brings the fully licensed UEFA tournament including all 24 teams, kits, official graphics, stadiums and match ball. Anyone who wants to immerse themselves virtually in the European Championship feeling will find ideal conditions here. It's just a shame that "EA FC 24" is not a particularly good soccer game.
You can like the arcade soccer style, but "EA FC 24" is miles away from being a credible soccer simulation. Realism is also not the aim: cool dribbles and overhead kicks are more appealing to the young target group than positional play and deliberate build-up play.
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This is legitimate - but it is annoying for fans that EA is pushing any alternatives out of the market. The superior game "Pro Evolution Soccer " threw in the towel a few years ago: Konami's soccer simulation "PES" didn't stand a chance against EA's exclusive licenses.
There is no way around Ultimate Team
Since the end of "PES" at the latest, EA's soccer simulation, which until recently was still called "FIFA", has been practically out of competition. There is therefore no reason to significantly develop the game further. But are new competitors now emerging for "EA FC"? The indie studio Strikez Inc. is preparing to launch its soccer game "UFL", Konami is expanding its "PES" successor "eFootball" from time to time. And the world governing body FIFA is searching for a new partner to develop soccer games under the "FIFA" name in the future, following its split from EA. So there are several glimmers of hope for soccer fans that EA's dominance could at least be challenged. But unfortunately, it's not that simple.
To understand the market for sports video games, you have to understand EA's "Ultimate Team" mode. For this online mode, you put together teams of the strongest possible players, who are randomly drawn from card packs. You buy these packs for real money – they are classic loot boxes. EA earns over one and a half billion US dollars a year from the sale of loot boxes in its sports games, in addition to the sales price of the actual game. So it's no wonder that Ultimate Team takes precedence over all other game modes. This is where the big money is.
"UFL" and "eFootball" are only sham competitors
Multiplayer titles with microtransactions dominate the gaming market – and not just in sports simulations. According to market researchers from Newzoo, gamers spent most of their time last year playing games that have been available for a long time, such as "Fortnite", "League of Legends", "GTA Online" and others. Meanwhile, only 23 percent of playtime was spent on current games – half of which went to sports games such as "EA FC", which only evolve slightly from year to year and could therefore just as easily belong to the other category. Long-lived titles with multiplayer modes dominate the market and rake in the money. A single unsuccessful single-player title, on the other hand, can be enough to seal the fate of a studio.
Even the up-and-coming competition cannot escape this economic reality. It is no wonder that Konami's Free2Play game "eFootball", the narrow-gauge version of "Pro Evolution Soccer" that is primarily profitable on cell phones, still does not offer any real single-player modes almost three years after its release. And "UFL" also concentrates entirely on a multiplayer mode similar to "Ultimate Team". Old-school fans of older "FIFA" and "PES" games, who primarily want realistic gameplay and an in-depth single-player career mode, should therefore not get their hopes up. The single-player mode will never take center stage in either "UFL" or "eFootball".
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FIFA's last hope?
In any case, "UFL" and "eFootball" only exist in the slipstream of "EA FC". They have no realistic chance of displacing the role model – there is a lack of licenses, budget, know-how and scope. That leaves one option: the hated world soccer association, FIFA, of all things, could put its former partner in a tight spot. Dumbfounded by EA's rejection of a contract extension, the head of the association, Gianni Infantino, recently said defiantly that the new "FIFA" game would certainly surpass "EA FC". "We are developing new partners and a new game, which of course, like everything we do, will be the best," he orated.
It is doubtful that Infantino knows much about game development. But not the financial power and prestige that a FIFA partnership would bring. It remains to be seen who FIFA wants to work with on a new soccer game. However, there is only one realistic candidate with whom the world soccer association could create a competitive product: 2K Games. A name that does not trigger euphoria among sports game connoisseurs – 2K is notorious for its ruthlessly profit-oriented business models, which it takes to even greater extremes in games such as "NBA 2K" than EA does in "EA FC".
2K has already beaten EA once
What 2K can undoubtedly do is gameplay: both "NBA 2k" and the recently released "TopSpin 2k25" play superbly and have more of a simulation feel than FIFA's sports games. It was not for nothing that 2K Games clearly won the basketball duel between its own "NBA 2k" and EA's "NBA Live" a few years ago. EA had to withdraw from the market after "NBA Live 2019" – EA simply couldn't keep up with "NBA 2k".
The opposite scenario is looming in the soccer sector, as 2K has never developed a soccer game. The technology and the money are there, but the know-how? FIFA is likely to insist that the soccer game is ready by the 2026 World Cup at the latest, but you don't just pull a game like that out of the ground. Modern blockbuster video games take years to become presentable. Sports games are also highly complex and difficult to develop.
And then there's the problem of licenses: FIFA comes with a license package of tournaments and national teams. However, the players themselves have to be licensed separately, just like club teams – and EA holds some of these licenses exclusively. 2K will therefore think carefully about whether they really want to go head-to-head with Electronic Arts in cooperation with FIFA. The omens are anything but ideal.
It urgently needs competition
Nevertheless, the prospect of a soccer game from 2K should give hope to simulation fans: If 2K decides to develop it, the US publisher will not do things by halves. 2K's business ideas are at least as dubious as EA's, but in a direct duel they might have to refrain from the worst excesses. Serious competition can only be good for the market for soccer games – perhaps resources would even flow back into the further development of gameplay and single-player modes.
Back down to earth: If you want to manage the fortunes of the national team on your PC or console during the European Championship hype, you have to buy "EA FC 24". The game costs 70 euros on Steam. At least the update for Euro 2024 is free.
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