The Shotcaller #2 29/11/2016 | Page 50

there ’ s an in-game structure present that helps young and emerging talents to prove themselves in regular tournaments organised by EA , something that had been missing for too long . FIFA always had a massive playerbase , but without the structures put in place , it ’ s eSports endeavours were doomed . This is about to change .
Additionally , the eSports community within FIFA is growing rapidly : Big football teams like Schalke , Wolfsburg , Paris-Saint-German , Lissabon , WestHam United and more have announced their FIFA rosters , and with fresh new teams like Hashtag United , FIFA ’ s future looks really bright . FIFA is probably the one game that is easiest to learn out of all eSports , due to everyone interested in it having at least a little but of background on football . Sports teams in particular can massively capitalise on this , as they can encourage their fans that support their regular football club ( and probably play FIFA ), to also support their respective eSports team . With this fan support , viewership numbers are bound to explode , which then causes more industry interest in the scene , starting a chain reaction . Due to this , FIFA will emerge as the biggest sports franchise within eSports , and as one of the five most popular eSport disciplines in the foreseeable future - mark my words . Now , there is an elephant in the way of FIFA emerging as a popular eSport : Pay to Win . FIFA ’ s most popular game mode , Ultimate Team , relies on players opening packs for real money . There is a way to form a decent team without spending any money , but getting a Ronaldo or Messi to play for your club without spending any money , is virtually impossible . A player like Ronaldo is worth more than a million coins , you get 400 coins per match , up to 10,000 if you win the highest division title . The squads professional players use are worth upwards of 10,000,000 coins . You do the math . Professional players are expected to spend somewhere in the range of 500-700 € in order to form a squad to compete with . Of course , if you ’ re under a contract with a professional team , they might finance this for you . As a semi-professional player ? Best of luck succeeding without spending that amount of money . You ’ re gonna need it .
Overall , FIFA ’ s future as an eSport looks brighter than ever before . The fact that it ’ s a game that everyone already knows , is a huge advantage for finding new fans . If EA is able to introduce more tournaments , and an overall easier to compete in environment , we ’ re going to see a lot of teams following suit very quickly .