[harry8]

Such a good opportunity for EA to mount an Anti-FIFA corruption campaign in game. Mess with some trade rules. Images of Sep Blatter bathing in the rain of cash at the press conference. Force players to choose between FI-FI-FA legacy league and the new hotness.

FIFA are corrupt from top to bottom. EA have a direct channel to a huge slab of their market to tear the FIFA politicians with their snouts in the trough a new one.

Might actually make next years' game update a lot more interesting than changing the player lists. I'd like to be less cynical about the prospects of anyone actually cleaning up corruption anywhere right now. I really would. Do you prefer Ivanka or Hunter flavours of corruption? We can't even vote that out so the Military Industrial Complex is pretty safe. No chance of health reform either. Nobody likes Ivanka or Hunter and there they go shovelling more money than you will in a decade just this month. "Now do the $other_side who are worse!"

edit: last para anti-corruption rant

[namdnay]

And the following year FIFA will give the licence to another developer, any everyone will switch to that. PES was a far better game than FIFA, but everyone wanted to play with their favourite players and teams. There's no way EA will kill that cash cow

[MarkCole]

The article mentions that the FIFA license only includes rights to the name, logo and rights to the World Cup.

The player and teams name, likenesses and logos are governed by licenses with other organisations.

[miki123211]

Alternatively, they will allow players to load external databases of teams, logos and footballers from a file, and the community will do the rest of the job. This kind of stuff has been tried before and it's usually pretty safe, legally speaking.

[eldaisfish]

the problem with that approach is abundantly clear in the sales figure gap between PES and FIFA.

Most people are lazy and don't want to bother with locating files, patching games, dealing with borked patches and so on.

[that_guy_iain]

Honestly, I am not sure who is more disliked. FIFA or EA.

[300bps]

I’m sure there are a lot of people my age that remember EA extremely fondly for the things they did decades ago.

M.U.L.E. and Seven Cities of Gold and Archon and many others were the best games some of us grew up on.

I haven’t been involved in gaming except for the 2 I occasionally play with my kids so I’m blissfully unaware of anything EA has done recently. But back then, they were really amazing.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-16-seeing-farther...

[loudmax]

Absolutely! The first time I heard of Electronic Arts was from Archon in the early 80's. It's a positive association, and I thought the name "Electronic Arts" was pretty damn cool for a video game company, maybe even bordering on pretentious. I lost most interest in PC games as I got into Linux and open source, but for me EA had a generally positive connotation due to Archon.

And on reflection, while Archon was a good game it didn't have enough much depth to make it something truly groundbreaking. Maybe someone should make an updated version of the game. I'm afraid that whatever today's EA would put out would only tarnish my positive memories though.

[that_guy_iain]

Personally, I remember them screwing up Westwood games or what feels like them screwing up Westwood games.

It feels like they totally ruined:

* C&C * Theme Park (entire theme franchise, theme hospital too) * Dungeon Keeper

[skhr0680]

I wish EA had spun Generals out into a separate IP, instead of treating its customers like idiots, with a result that was unfair to everyone: C&C fans didn’t get a follow up to RA2, and Generals got a ton of hate for reasons that had nothing to do with the actual game, which was a very good RTS with interesting factions and fun / clever mechanics.

[audiometry]

Mule was a beautiful game. Never had the chance to play it as four live players only two. Think that would have been a blast.

[skhr0680]

Shit vs. Turd

[criley2]

>Do you prefer Ivanka or Hunter flavours of corruption?

Such a dishonest comparison. One was nepotistically involved in day to day operations of the American government, put into diplomatic situations in an official capacity, even attempted to be named World Bank President.

The other is completely divorced from politics and uses his name to sell artwork

This kind of false equivalence does great service to the worst-of-all-time American corruption we experienced in 2016-2020, and helps ensure that it will return.

Which flavor do I prefer? Obviously the one without nepotism, where the child has nothing to do with politics, government and serves in no capacity, official or otherwise. And you should to. Shame on you for pretending otherwise.

When you can't differentiate between nefarious nepotistic public corruption and "using the family name to sell paintings", you do your part to ensure it can and will get worse.

>We can't even vote that out so the Military Industrial Complex is pretty safe

The Military Industrial Complex is very mad at Joe for ending the Afghanistan war and actually pulling troops out. While the previous President admitted he would have left thousands of troops, defied the agreement, and continued the war.

Once again, your false equivalence makes you say "both sides" when there is a real difference.

The war in Afghanistan ended because only one side had the cajones to stick it to the military industrial complex and actually end it, regardless of the optics, the politics and the cost. But you're playing cynical games and you refuse to admit actual change, because it makes you look/feel smart to lie about everyone being the same. Ironically you are serving the military industrial complex right now, who desperately want "one side" out and the other side back, because they can't control the current side nearly as well, and are very upset about the end of the war. Good job helping them, as false equivalence is a powerful tool in their propaganda belt.

This is how the worst outcomes become reality -- being unable and unwilling to appreciate any good at all.

[_v7gu]

I am quite upset about the war ending in the worst way possible. You talk like the war in Afghanistan "ending" was a good thing probably because you get to live far, far away from yet another region destabilised by US hands. Joe thought Afghans were too dumb to understand backwards induction, and put a nice islamic state over there. Military industry would sure be mad about the existence of new righteous wars to be fought over there.

[criley2]

The idea that the war could have been ended any other way is Military Industrial Complex propaganda. It's a complete and total fabrication that relies on the ignorance of people to believe that just a little more war and death would magically create a stable government.

The Afghan government was always going to collapse to the Taliban. 10 years ago, 10 years from now.

There was no end to this war where the Afghan government resisted the Taliban.

And now you claim that the military industrial complex is happy about the end of the war, when they used their control of the media to throw a two month long tantrum? Ridiculous.

How funny that you in one breath bemoan "region destabilized by American hands" and in the next promote neo-colonialism and forever war. You stand for nothing. The Afghan people deserve to rule themselves and if they want an Islamic state, then your bigotry against their self-determination speaks volumes about your concepts of colonialism and your desire to be their white man savior.

[_v7gu]

>The Afghan people deserve to rule themselves

What now? Did I miss the election? Maybe then Afghans should have thrown US out of the country if they didn't want their presence. Or do things just seem really easy to people who only lived near peace?

> You stand for nothing.

I stand for the rights of Afghans. Do it there, or take all of them as refugees. Your responsibility, I didn't start a war there for bullshit reasons. Just don't be hypocritical. How can cake be a big deal when you can leave people to be thrown down roofs without blinking?

> your desire to be their white man savior.

You come into my region, fuck everything up, and say this when I want you to clean up your mess?

[fennecfoxen]

> used to sell artwork

Yes, and only artwork, definitely not influence. The person responsible for anticorruption efforts, and rooting out any sophisticated, foreign disruptive agents’ access to the White House, by rejecting “abnormal” bids, is a New York art dealer named Georges Bergès. He seems reputable enough, right?

[criley2]

The idea that loser Hunter can sell "influence" into a White House that he has no role in, no influence in, and is actively kept from, is rank propaganda.

Hunter serves this government in no capacity, official or otherwise, and has no ability to "sell influence".

Ironically, anyone dealing with Hunter is black listed from the White House, as being around that loser is a red flag that slams doors shut in your face.

Which of course is far different than say over 20 different foreign governments renting hotel rooms (that they don't show up for, just to transfer funds) from the President's son, who dutifully reports back to the White House to help set access to the President himself...

This false equivalence is an extremely powerful tool to control people.

[harry8]

Is he selling influence? Meh. Is he selling the appearance of influence? What is he selling? How is he making any money at all?

I don't much care about a massive nothing like Hunter Biden. Really. Who does? Anyone who doesn't know and love him personally?

Well people care enough to buy his art for big money which is only the case because of the power of his father. Without his powerful father he doesn't make $5. He's no artist is about the most uncontroversial statement imaginable. Very shady Ukrainian business interests were paying him how much a month for his "business expertise?" More than the annual minimum wage? For no duties? Can you get that job? Can I? Can he if his father is Joe Average? Can he if his father is Michael Jordan, or Robin Williams, or Matthew McConnaughey, or Richard Feynman, or any other superstar achiever who isn't politically powerful with duties involving the Ukraine? Does Joe Biden exercise political actions for money or the money that Hunter gets? I actually strongly doubt it. But I'm only 99.8% sure of that. Does it compromise Joe anyway? Yeah, it looks terrible!

It looks terrible because it is terrible. Claiming Ivanka is worse has just gotta stop. Ivanka is irrelevant.

Claming Hunter is worse than Ivanka if you swing that way has just gotta stop. Hunter is irrelevant.

They both meet the threshold to turn your stomach. Regardless if you love the Don or love the Joe or love both (and seriously, good for you if you do. Things are better if you can bring yourself to like both candidates - I'd like to get there too).

Hunter and Ivanka both stink to high heaven. It is of zero consequence who is "worse" they both limbo effortlessly under any bar of decency. They are both shining, sparkling advertisements with fireworks to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds that nobody cares about "merit" or "cleverness" or "honesty" or "hard work" and that you, kid, were not born to succeed like they were and have through nothing more than ... Fill in your own ideas for what personal attributes comprise their financial success.

If only one of those two turns your stomach you have drunk some partisan kool-aid. The benchmark for the actions of the US president and direct family members has to be higher than "Not actually illegal" Whoever the president may be.

If we have a partisan preference maybe we should work out in advance what evidence would turn us against them. What would be bad enough that we might not support them anymore. So if it should happen we're mentally prepared to turn on them so there's some chance of consequences.

Both of Ivanka and Hunter will be fine. The prospect of consequences for them or the political fortunes of their family members are so far below what would be a good thing their story is only illustrative of how bad and endemic the corruption has become.

But yeah you saw those evil gnomes at Fox/MSNBC are rallying around Rachel/Tucker because, that side is so EVIL ... Delete as applicable. As awful as all that is it's actually less depressing than the reality of it all.

[criley2]

Once again, this is rank false equivalence which elevates non-corrupt outsider acitivity with actual corruption by public officials elevated to high office corruptly.

I refuse to fall into the low-IQ cynicism of both-side-isms.

It's worse for a public servant, with actual influence and power, to be corrupt, than it is for a child of a politician to make money.

Yes, Hunter is irrelevant because he's not in our government.

NO, Ivanka was not irrelevant, because she was a member of our government elevated to have power in our country.

These differences fundamentally matter. And no amount of both-sides-ism or false equivalence will change the reality that public servants must be held to a higher standard than children of politicians.

It is not "partisan kool-aid" to hold public servants to a higher standard than private children, and to suggest otherwise is ignorant and immoral.

[harry8]

Look at what Hunter has been doing and how that makes the President and his office look. Think about how you feel about that. Ivanka is completely irrelevant to that analysis. Ivanka is not a standard of behavior.

Surely Biden's DoJ will prosecute Ivanka for each and every law breaking activity. Why wouldn't they? Hunter is completely irrelevant to that.

Corruption has to go no matter who, no matter where, no matter what, no matter how politically inexpedient. There's plenty of legal corruption. Pick the 5 kinds of corruption you think are the worst for the nation and also are not illegal. It's harder than it sounds but not because you can't get to 5.

Anyway this is ceasing to be productive as is so often the case. "Those guys suck, my team is fine." The disease of corruption rages on with no real change in sight.

[_hilro]

> uses his name to sell artwork

Sure, because that's the extent of his corruption.

[criley2]

>Sure, because that's the extent of his corruption.

Definition: Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted with a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's private gain

What position of authority has Hunter Biden been entrusted with that he has abused?

What illicit benefits has Hunter Biden gained?

Shame on you for playing this partisan game. Unlike Invanka, who was nepotistically elevated to public service, Hunter has absolutely no role in the American government and thus cannot in any fair sense be corrupt.

[PedroBatista]

> Such a good opportunity for EA to mount an Anti-FIFA corruption campaign in game.

That would be next level irony.

EA, the stewards of justice and defenders of sports.

[harry8]

>EA, the stewards of justice and defenders of sports.

Ha. No. But they do apparently literally have a billion very good reasons to stand up to corruption. Total self-interest. But it also sure wouldn't do their reputation any harm at all to claim a few FIFA supercharged-hoovering trough-snouts' scalps.

[mbg721]

In college I played a Madden franchise with my roommates, and late in the first season, somebody's star player had an injury marked "Out for career". We joked that they should also simulate crime and bad-conduct suspensions, but from there it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to have a low-probability "league schism" check each year.

[siva7]

Comparing the power of FIFA to that of EA would be more akin to that of Walmart and a mom-and-pop store. There is no way EA could win this power struggle. So it remains a mystery what the tactic of EA is.

[RegnisGnaw]

How so? The only thing that FIFA licensed is the words "FIFA", the logo, and the World Cup. All the other stuff (player likeness, etc) are separate licenses.

So if EA loses the licenses to say EPIC, then what? People really gonna play a FIFA game with players like "Kristiano Ronalda"?

[siva7]

Regarding all the criminal and cartel-like activities of FIFA, it wouldn’t surprise me if EA would get in trouble with the other licenses as well. The fee might as well be at this point protection money to not lose also other license deals.

[karmakaze]

Make all the in-game presentation accurate but comical so it falls under 'parody'.

[Shadonototra]

interesting how people want to make EA looks like the good guys in the story

let's talk about gambling mechanics in their games, shall we?

sounds like people want to make this a political affair, what's the real reason? smells like anti FIFA propaganda

also reminds me of how the US wanted to force some EU clubs to ditch the Champion's League for their own "Cup" thingy

shady shady

[Bayart]

> Force players to choose between FI-FI-FA legacy league and the new hotness.

FIFA has the approval of nation-states and there's massive cultural capital invested in FIFA, especially regarding the World Cup. Nobody's leaving it, especially not players. FIFA also doesn't have leagues of its own.

> EA have a direct channel to a huge slab of their market to tear the FIFA politicians with their snouts in the trough a new one.

EA is chump change compared to world football. They've got no leverage, and despite the dislike for FIFA everywhere, a power struggle between the two with EA casting itself as the righteous party will only invite backlash.

[pg_bot]

> EA is chump change compared to world football. They've got no leverage, and despite the dislike for FIFA everywhere, a power struggle between the two with EA casting itself as the righteous party will only invite backlash.

You sure about that? EA's revenue for the last fiscal year was 5.6 billion dollars. FIFA's revenue for the last 4 years is about equal to that dollar amount. There's a lot more money in video games than people think.

[Bayart]

I'm not talking about revenue. Football isn't really an industry, and it's not rational. If you want to compare the cultural and social footprint of football to something it's video games as a whole, not EA on its lonesome.

[pg_bot]

I mean you could probably supplant the entire FIFA organization with $10B if you wanted to take a really big swing. Money talks and if you funnel the right amount of money to the best players you will create the best sports league.

[owenmarshall]

The biggest clubs in the world tried this several months ago - the $3.2 billion European Super League didn’t even last a week before it fell apart.

FIFA survives because it effectively sanctions competitions at every level. Take Manchester United: they play in the English Premier League. That competition is sanctioned by the English FA - a member of UEFA, the European body of FIFA. If United make it into European competition, they play in a competition organized by UEFA. Their players represent their national teams all over the world, and compete in matches run by UEFA, CONMEBOL, and other FIFA governing bodies.

When Manchester United announced they were joining the Super League in lieu of the UEFA sanctioned European competitions, the FA announced that they were at risk of expulsion from the English league structure because the FA bylaws say you can only play matches sanctioned by FIFA/UEFA - essentially pulling the league and cup competitions away from them and turning them into a glorified exhibition team. And the fans went ballistic at this, for good reason.

Was the ESL a trial balloon? Almost certainly, and we will see something similar, possibly to just force UEFAs hand in negotiating things like revenue sharing. But supplanting FIFA would be much harder than “throwing money at the problem”.

[Bayart]

Those players would be excluding themselves from all known international football and from transferring to and fro all current clubs and leagues on earth. That would be _complete suicide_. They'd become nobodies overnight.

10B probably isn't even enough to buy out the PL, much less the world football pyramid.

[mikepurvis]

But how much of EA's revenue is from nonsense like microtransactions and loot boxes included in full price AAA games? Ultimate Team (the card trading meta-game) is $1.6B alone: https://boardroom.tv/ea-sports-fifa-ultimate-team-madden-nhl...

So yeah, it's a lot of money today, but at least that part of it is a revenue stream that IMO is vulnerable on a number of fronts, including regulatory issues, changing consumer sentiment, platform crackdowns, etc. It's a lot of eggs in one basket for EA, vs FIFA which is a household name for which much of the revenue should be extremely "safe".

[raverbashing]

Monetary size doesn't matter in this case. In the least

Do you think, in a (more moral than financial) dispute between EA and NBA who would win? It's like that but x10

Most people don't even know who EA is, they just want to play FIFA.

[vasco]

Pretty much every kid that has ever played FIFA knows and repeats the "EA sports - it's in the game" blurb so I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of EA.

[siva7]

Sure, but besides some geeks no one cares if the next FIFA is from EA or Epic. That’s the problem EA has

[siva7]

See it this way. If FIFA decides to award the License to another Publisher, then also other license givers will award them to the new publisher instead of EA. No football executive cares much about the relationship with a gaming studio but for sure about their goodstanding within the corrupt FIFA system.