Why FIFA Mobile Hasn't Yet Landed a Touchdown
On the heels of Madden Mobile's success, EA made the logical decision to update all of their key sports franchises to follow Madden’s winning formula. NBA got its mobile version revamped first in the summer, just after the basketball season had ended. Then in October, the crown jewel of all sports franchises, FIFA, got its mobile version out the door. I bet everyone at EA was holding their breath when FIFA Mobile finally launched. You see, FIFA is the most valuable sports franchise in the world and if the game succeeded, it would be a top 10 grossing hit around the world, unlike Madden, which is excels ‘only’ in North America.
FIFA Mobile was launched in early October after just a month long soft-launch phase. The game, as expected, received a massive surge of installs. Yet despite the best possible IP and all the installs, FIFA Mobile has failed to fulfill its incredibly high expectations. As of this moment, FIFA Mobile is nowhere near the top of grossing charts in any of the top tier markets.
This post deconstructs FIFA Mobile and aims to answer why the game - which looks beautiful, plays really great, has a dream IP and received a superb marketing push - has yet to break the top of the charts around the world.
*Author of this post is a huge EA FIFA (and NHL) fan who cured his addiction by reluctantly selling his console
GAMEPLAY
In the hyper-successful console version, the main focus is on the authentic gameplay itself. After all, a decade or so ago, the authentic gameplay is what allowed FIFA to solidify itself as the best soccer game over the more arcade-like Pro Evolution Soccer. Getting into FIFA on consoles is relatively simple, but make no mistake, it is a skill-based game that requires players to master not only the controls but also their teams and tactics. And the best part about FIFA, in my opinion, is that it’s constantly updating and follows the player transfers in real-life.
FIFA Mobile plays very differently than the console version. Firstly, the controls are simplified and adjusted for a mobile platform. Secondly, the gameplay has been also simplified into something that resembles the FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer of early 2000 rather than the modern day versions of these games. What I mean by that is that the gameplay is almost solely focused on scoring goals rather than building up scoring opportunities or defending. This leads to an almost basketball-like gameplay where one player runs through the whole pitch (running with the ball oddly enough doesn’t seem to slow down players in FIFA Mobile) and either shoots himself or crosses for a header.
So, to sum it up, FIFA Mobile looks like a serious soccer simulator but plays more like an arcade soccer game. More arcade gameplay doesn’t make the game less fun. Sure, both sides may score up to 8 goals a game and scoring is always fun. You can even argue that the more arcade gameplay lowers the entry barrier, which is clearly something EA was going for though I’d assume that people who download FIFA Mobile have very clear gameplay expectations when they download the game. The challenge, in my mind, is that with a simplified gameplay you tend to lose depth. And when the gameplay itself is simplified, it puts way more pressure on the progression mechanics and metagame as they have to now fill the void left by the gameplay.
GAME MODES
In order to provide players with options for play session length as well as different gameplay experiences, FIFA Mobile offers four different game modes that range anywhere from less than a minute long challenges up to full matches that last almost 6 minutes each.
With a variety of play sessions, you can play FIFA Mobile on the go or invest a good half an hour playing full matches on your couch. Just like in all the other EA sports games, the session length is restricted with an Energy mechanic.
Game Mode 1: Seasons
In Seasons player’s goal is to take his team through a 20-match-season in an authentic league of player’s choice. All the matches are played against AI opponents. Seasons is the only game mode in FIFA Mobile where a player actually plays a full game of soccer engaging in both attacking and defending. Each match is two half-times, which leads to around 5 and a half minute long matches.
In Seasons player chooses which real-life league they want to play. After the choice, a player engages in 20 matches against the real-life teams, played by AI, in that league with a goal of winning the cup. Lack of visualized progress (leaderboard) and poor rewards take the wind out of this game mode.
In the light of the ultimate goal of the game, which is to build the best possible team, there’s not a lot of incentive to play the Seasons mode. The rewards for playing each match are quite insignificant and completing a full season of 20 matches takes a lot of time and doesn’t reward a player with anything they’d really want. After playing all 20 matches, the Season simply resets and the player is presented with another 20 match grind, but now with slightly more improved stats for the same opponents.
The lack of incentive to play the Seasons mode is unfortunate as it’s the only game mode where a player can play the full version of soccer. Personally, I’d have the Seasons mode be the central progression mechanic of the game that ties in all the other game modes together. I mean, after all, a season in sports is a timeline. Not having the Seasons game mode at the center of the game is also counter-intuitive because a natural goal for a player in a sports game is to build and manage a team to win the cup.
Game Mode 2: Live Events
Every 20 or so hours the player is presented with a set of different challenges, such as scoring penalties, passing a defender or dribbling the ball through a set course. Upon completing these daily challenges player is rewarded not only with XP and Coins but also with Tokens, which player can eventually exchange for player cards.
Live Events, which are portrayed as challenges around the world, consists of different types of attacking scenarios, dribbling and free kick challenges.
It’s safe to say that the Live Events are the most entertaining, fastest and at the same time best-rewarded game mode in FIFA Mobile, which from player’s perspective might feel counter-intuitive. You see, as a GM of a soccer team, I don’t quite understand why my biggest reward comes from challenges such as dribbling a ball 3 times successfully against a random player in Brazil instead of playing matches of soccer against other players or progressing through Seasons. Yet the game insists that I engage in this game mode rather than consume my limited energy points on a long lasting Season as the Tokens (detailed later in the blog) earned from Live Events are the primary way to get players in FIFA Mobile.
Game Mode 3: Attack Mode
The way Attack Mode works is essentially like Trivia Crack. Players take turns, during which they’re presented with a set of attacking scenarios against opponents AI controlled defense. Player tries to score as many goals as possible out of some 10 attacking scenarios. Players engaged in an Attack Mode match take two turns (half-times) each after which the goals are summed up and the winner emerges. In a case of a draw, players will player another turn each.
In the Attack Mode player engages in asynchronous match with other players. Each match consists of two half-times and each half-time is a set of attacking scenarios against the opponent's AI defense. The match ends once both players play two half-times each. Winner is the player who scores most goals.
Just as the name implies, players won’t play defense in the Attack Mode. Every time player scores or loses the control of the ball another attacking scenario is starts until the match time runs out. To sum it up, the Attack Mode is fun. In an average Seasons match player may get around ten scoring opportunities in little less than 6 minutes. The Attack Mode offers 10 solid scoring opportunities in just two short minutes, making it an action packed experiences where every play counts.
Oh, and when you’re completing your turn, you don’t know how many goals the opponent has scored against you during his turn. The opponents goals are shown only after both players have taken their turns. This system is important as it doesn’t allow players to dismiss games where the opponent has trashed them during their turn.
To make the Attack Mode more engaging, EA decided to build a league structure around it. The goal of the league structure, or Divisions as it’s called in the game, is to give players a sense of progress. (think of Trophies in Clash Royale) Another important goal for leagues is also to increase the attractiveness of Attack Mode - after all, there are several other game modes that consume players’ very limited and slowly refilled energy meter.
The league for Attack Mode works in a very simple way. Every time players plays an Attack Mode match turn they gain or lose Fans based on how well they fared. As soon as player crosses certain Fan thresholds, they move up to the next league ladder. Moving up into a new Division increases the rewards player receives for every match.
Winning matches in Attack Mode grows a number of Fans player has. As player crosses Fan thresholds, they move up in Divisions. This is a great system and it works quite well. The only problem is that the rewards in Divisions are, once again, meaningless making the whole Division system obsolete.
On paper, the Attack Mode looks like a perfect storm. You have fast sessions full of action. You pit players against each other. And to top it all off, you add leagues to give a sense of progress. In reality, the Attack Mode is far less engaging. Firstly, the asynchronous turn-based structure results in a large portion of the matches never getting finished as the opponent fails, or chooses not to, take his turn in the given time. It makes you wonder why players are forced to play two turns each, and lose each other between turns, instead of just playing one turn. Secondly, the rewards from Attack Mode are quite meaningless as player essentially earns only Coins and XP. Finally, the whole Division system, which is designed to create a sense of progress, is quite poorly implemented. Moving up the league ladders by accumulating Fans is rewarded with Coin bonus per match. A solid way to make the league more interesting is tying rare cards (players) to player's current league tier, just like in Clash Royale.
In addition to being fun but meaningless, Attack Mode is also a source of an uncontrolled amount of notifications and inbox messages as every time someone plays against your team, you’ll get notified. This annoyance could be simply solved by limiting the amount of times you’re surfaces as a possible opponent. There’s no point in having 20 players waiting for you to take turns against them.
The Attack Mode is a source of an uncontrolled amount of notifications that fill up players inbox. Challenges from other players get buried up and lead to matches never being finished.
Game Mode 4: Leagues
The fourth game mode is the Leagues - which despite its somewhat misleading name, is a mode where players form a guild and can either play against each other in a tournament format or challenge another guild. The internal tournament, called Championship, is a well-made game mode and likely fun if you happen to be a part of an engaged guild. In these internal tournaments, players essentially play against each other in an Attack Mode for bragging rights rather than any in-game rewards.
Leagues (guilds) is once again a well-built game mode, which allows players to form groups and challenge each other or other Leagues into a tournament. The lack of meaningful prizes and the fact that this mode, as like every other mode in the game, consumes Energy, makes it pretty much obsolete. Unless of course, you happen to be in a League with actual people you know.
The real motivation for joining a guild is the League versus League Tournament. In this game mode, every player in a guild plays an Attack Mode turn against every player in opposing guild. After the time is up, or all the players from both guilds have taken their turns, the goals are summed up and the winners are rewarded with specific League Tokens. The losers get some Tokens as well, just less.
CONTROLS
The controls on the console version of FIFA are extremely complicated taking use of all the 12 buttons and two joysticks of a XBOX or PS controller and re-assigning them depending on whether a player is playing offense or defense. FIFA Mobile, luckily, offers much more simplified and streamlined control system that fits perfectly with the arcade-style gameplay.
The foundation of controls in FIFA Mobile is built around a contextual virtual joystick and three buttons. During the attacking phase, the buttons are assigned for passing, shooting and sprinting or making a skill move. In defense, the pass button turns into a button that allows switching between players while the shooting button becomes a slide button. And just like in the console version, the power of a shot or a pass is dependent on how long player presses and holds the button.
One joystick and three buttons already make the controls straightforward, but FIFA Mobile didn’t stop there. Instead, it looks like the team went through extensive user testing and created a control scheme that can be described as bulletproof. For example, the player can pass the ball by either using the pass button or by tapping on a specific player or point on the pitch where they want to pass to. Same thing goes for shooting, as a player can swipe to shoot instead of pressing the shoot button. And to make the swiping more intuitive, the direction of the swipe, as well as the speed of swiping, will both affect the shot.
I personally enjoyed the controls in FIFA Mobile. They're simple and they allow pretty much all kinds of different input methods from tapping to swiping. And on top of this, the game turns into full auto-play mode when a player lifts his fingers off the screen. Brilliant!
To further simplify and improve the controls, FIFA Mobile offers autoplay for players. Lifting fingers off the screen will cause your players to play without any inputs. This is a phenomenal addition to a mobile game that requires uninterrupted attention from a player. In other words, I’m not stressed by getting interrupted in the middle of the game because I know that my players will continue playing without me controlling them. And once the interrupting moment is over, I can simply put my finger back on the virtual joystick to seize the control of the game. Brilliant!
THE CORE LOOP
In FIFA Mobile Soccer a player builds the best possible team from an extremely comprehensive selection of real-life players. And just like in real-life, the best players are very rare and cost a lot of money. And, just like in real-life, a player needs to win games to earn money to buy the best players. FIFA Mobile’s core loop is based on these real-life elements making it intuitive as it combines the goal of the game with the hurdles to achieve that goal.
FIFA Mobile's core loop is straightforward. Playing games takes Stamina (energy), which refills with time. Playing and winning gives soft currency, XP and additional game mode currency. All these currencies gained from playing are used to purchase better players either from store, auction house or gacha (tokens).
Playing and winning games reward players with Coins and XP. Playing games will cost players “Stamina”, which is FIFA Mobile’s energy mechanic. The energy mechanic provides players a window of gameplay, after which they are time-gated and thus blocked from playing until the Stamina refills. (read more about slowing players' progress with Energy and other mechanics)
Coins enable players to buy more “Player Packs” from the FIFA Store. A Player Pack can contain players with better stats. In order to upgrade a team in FIFA Mobile, a player simply replaces existing players with new players that have better stats. Another way to get new players is by collecting various different Tokens, which player earns from Live Event game mode, and trade in these Tokens for a reward.
Every player in FIFA Mobile has tremendous amount stats, but in the end, the only stat that truly matters is the player's overall score. Thus a better team is simply the team that has more players with higher overall stats. Maybe a bit too simplistic, wouldn't you agree?
XP is gained by interacting with any of the game modes. Just like in any other game, accumulating XP levels up the player. The main draw for leveling up is that it unlocks new Tactics. Slowly unlocking Tactics through a player level is an interesting method of building player progression, and feels intuitive. Just like in real-life, the more experienced general managers tend to have more tricks up their sleeves, right?
I’m just not assured that the new tactics really affect the gameplay in a meaningful way. You see, the way tactics are done is this: a player has a team of 27 active players. Let's say I choose a tactic such as Wing Attack or in soccer terms “4-3-3”. By choosing this tactic the team is automatically reduced into 11 playing players based on positions needed with this specific tactic. In other words, changing tactics doesn’t really make sense as it doesn’t help the player to win and there are no rewards for playing with different tactics. The winning strategy for FIFA Mobile is to choose one tactic, stick with it and to assign players with highest overall points to the 11 positions used in this tactic.
As player levels up, they unlock new Tactics. Here's how Tactics work: a player chooses a Tactic and that Tactic dictates which 11 players out of 27 players on the team will play. In the image above I've chosen Wing Attack tactic, which leads me to use only one striker and two wingers out of my attacking squad.
Overall, the core loop of FIFA Mobile is, as said, intuitive. Everything makes sense on the paper and feels good at a start. It’s only after a few days that the issues with progression combined with very arcade-like gameplay result as, likely, weaker than anticipated retention.
PLAYER PROGRESSION
Most great games have a strong player goal. Something that motivates you to return to the game day after day and month after month. The goal of FIFA Mobile is to build the best team and that’s where the game, in my opinion, drops the ball by offering a pretty shallow and quite grindy experience. Because of the arcade-style gameplay, there’s a strong demand for an engaging sports-manager gameplay.
Building a team in FIFA Mobile is a flat experience due to three issues. Firstly, building the best team is as simple of a goal as collecting 11 players with top stats for each position in a chosen tactic. There’s almost no depth in the actual team building part of the game. Gone are FIFA Ultimate Team elements such as chemistry between players who are from the same country, who are playing in the same team in real-life or who have played for several games in the team player has built. Secondly, there’s no progression for individual players. There are no consumable cards that would improve players' stats. The players' stats won't improve either no matter how much you play them. Instead, improving your team is simply replacing one player with another player who has the better overall score and who plays the same position. Finally, there are no injuries, red cards or player contracts that can run out, which essentially eliminates all need to have more than those 11 players for a chosen tactic.
Instead of investing in sports-management gameplay to drive the progression, FIFA Mobile, just like several other EA’s games, looks to the gacha mechanic to drive progression (and monetization). Tokens and Plans are FIFA Mobile’s version of gacha and here how it works: Player completes a set of Live Events that are time-gated. Each event offers a different type of Token upon successful completion. For example, a Training Token is received from completing Drill Live Events. These Tokens are then invested into specific Plans. For example, the Training Tokens are dropped into Training Plan. Once a player has 20 Training Tokens, they’ll claim the prize for the Training Plan, which is usually a card pack of players or Coins.
Each Live Event offers a completion reward in form of soft currency, XP, and a Token. After player successfully completes a Live Event, they’re rewarded with a Token specific for that Live Event type. After a player has collected enough of specific Tokens, they exchanged them for a reward. Personally, I found this mechanic confusing, grindy and tedious
To oversimplify it a bit, what makes gacha mechanics so powerful is that they allow the game to reward players infinitely without worrying about inflating the economy or burning through the content too rapidly. What FIFA Mobile has with Tokens and Plans can perhaps be described as a gacha mechanic, but for sure it’s not a good one. Think about the Token-loop from the player’s perspective. We’re doing these weird challenges called "Live Events", that have nothing to do with winning soccer games. And the rewards for completing these challenges are Tokens, which are meaningless until they’re crafted into a reward pack called "Plan" that without exception offer an underwhelming reward compared to the effort it took to collect the damn Tokens. Basing your whole progression mechanic on gacha definitely works, but only when the gacha is well designed and implemented. Just look at Kabam’s Contest of Champions.
Games that have a strong gameplay can get away with more simplistic and even grindy player progression. Just look at games such as World of Tanks Blitz, Hearthstone, Vainglory andClash Royale. When the gameplay is strong and has a clear skill element, players tend to retain because they simply like playing the game and want to become better at it. On the other hand, games that lack strong gameplay rely on elaborate progression mechanics and social gameplay. Good examples for games that lack strong gameplay are Summoner's War, Mobile Strike and even Kabam’s Contest of Champions.
Unlike its console version, FIFA Mobile doesn’t really offer strong gameplay. There are a very light skill element and very little strategy. Thus the game’s long-term retention relies almost solely on the mechanics that drive player progression But when the progression mechanics are as confusing, grindy and uninspiring as they are, it is hard to see this beautifully crafted game holding on to its educated players.
SOCIAL
First of the two main social systems in FIFA Mobile is the Attack Mode, which pits players against each other in an asynchronous game of two half-times of attacking scenarios. The strength of this mode is the fact that players can play against each other at their convenience. As described previously in the game modes portion of this post, the Attack Mode suffers from poorly executed progress mechanics (Fans players earn or lose through Attack Mode has no meaning to the player). The other problem with the Attack mode is the fact that it doesn't get player any closer to the goal of the game, which is building the best team. Rewards for Attack Mode are underwhelming at best.
"Leagues", which are the guild in FIFA Mobile, is a very well built system. Yet this great feature falls flat because it's supportive of player goal nor part of the core loop.
The second important social system in FIFA Mobile is the guilds, which are called "Leagues". There are two reasons for a player to be a member of a League in FIFA Mobile. First one is the League vs. League tournaments, which act as the only way of getting League Tokens. Second reason is to play against other guild members in a tournament format.
When you compare the guilds in FIFA Mobile to guilds in games like Clash of Clans or even Boom Beach, you’ll quickly understand that the guilds in FIFA Mobile are not integrated as a part of core loop and are simply not vital part of a progression. There’s no gifting or trading between guild members, which would work only if there was deeper sports management gameplay. And because there's very little depth in FIFA Mobile, there’s no need to discuss metagame with other players.
FIFA Mobile is definitely a social game and it does offer multiple avenues to engage with other players directly and indirectly. The issue is that these social avenues are not integrated with the core loop and thus feel secondary and even distracting to the player and his ultimate goal of building the best team.
MONETIZATION
FIFA Mobile monetizes through two main systems: Energy refills and Card Packs. Energy, or Stamina as it’s called in FIFA Mobile, limits player’s sessions length and creates a retention driver as players come back to the game once their Stamina is filled up. Stamina also limits the amount of Coins player makes per session because the only way to earn Coins is by playing the different game modes. In fact, a player can’t even purchase Coins with real money. Coins are needed to purchase new players. Because the energy mechanic FIFA Mobile only restricts players playtime and their accumulation of Coins, the game is not utilizing the full potential of monetization from Stamina. You see, other than playing really long binge sessions, there’s no demand for expedited energy refills. More strictly timed events with aspirational rewards and high Stamina consumption rate would be a good solution to create demand for energy refills in FIFA Mobile.
FIFA Mobile has the true and tested energy mechanic that drives monetization and retention by limiting session length.
Card Packs, which a player can purchase either with Coins or Hard Currency, is arguably the primary source of monetization for FIFA Mobile. There are three different Card Packs a player can purchase. The smallest and cheapest one (costing less than $2) is the “Pro Pack”, which contains five players, out of which one is rare. The medium sized pack is called “Premium Pack” (costs $4) and it contains 5 players out of which three will be rare ones. The biggest pack is called the “Premium Bundle” and it is essentially 6 “Premium Packs” for $20.
Most of the card packs are purchasable with soft currency, which creates a nice feeling of fair play instead of pay-to-win. FIFA Mobile is also pushing to monetize through events, as seen from the Halloween themed player packs above.
An economy where a player earns Coins by playing the game and then spends those Coins to purchase new cards is solid. Especially when you add the gating Energy mechanics bundled with the luck element of card packs that forces a player to purchase more packs than they need. And all of this works well in the beginning when players start playing FIFA Mobile but don't really convert into strong and sustainable monetization loop.
Another blow on monetization comes in form of social marketplace called the Market, which has all the potentials of destroying the very tight Coin economy of FIFA Mobile. This issue stemming from a social marketplace is more of a rule than an anomaly in games - just look at Supercell's Hay Day, which suffers from the same Coin economy problems precisely because of this feature. But unlike in Hay Day. the social market in FIFA Mobile has no constraints - you can buy and sell cards at any price, and it's totally dependent on the free market to eventually come to an equilibrium about what's a reasonable price for cards. In this way, FIFA is different from Hay Day, because there are no ceiling prices for commodities. For example, in Hay Day the maximum price for an apple is 39 Coins while the minimum is 19.
Also, Hay Day's social marketplace limits with a pay-wall a number of commodities player can advertise in the social marketplace, thus allowing the social marketplace to drive conversion.
Games that occupy top grossing positions have generally spoken three base elements in common. The first base element is content. If a game aims to be on the top of the grossing charts, it needs to offer tens of thousands of dollars worth of content. Thousands of levels are Candy Crush Saga, hundreds of upgrade levels in Clash Royale and the brutal loss of progress in Mobile Strike upon defeat are all different ways to extend content. Second base element for monetization is the ability to constantly spend hard currency. Think again about Clash Royale, Game of War, Candy Crush or Slotomania. In all the top grossing games, players spend their premium currency at a rapid pace purchasing speed up, lives and missing resources to progress through the almost limitless content. The final base element of strong monetization is the social gameplay. You see, by connecting players with each other, you create an environment where players compare their progress to other players. This comparison, whether it comes through leaderboards, guilds or maps gets people to want to progress at a faster pace. Helping players to progress faster is the cornerstone of every strong monetization model.
FIFA Mobile doesn’t stack well against the three base elements of strong monetization. The game offers quite limited content and is essentially done after the player gets their 11 good players. In fact, you don't even need 11 great players since the diFIFA Mobile doesn’t offer a strong incentive for repeat purchases either. There’s a good incentive to buy a Premium Bundle worth $20 in the beginning as it gets a player in a solid place from the get go. After the initial purchase, however, there’s little to keep investing into. Energy is not really restricting players progress but most importantly, there’s no real need for better players as the game feels pretty much the same whether your team is filled with rare or super rare players. Finally, FIFA Mobile’s monetization suffers from a lack of meaningful social layer. The player versus player Attack Mode is not the progression game mode, rather a fun side game.
FIFA Mobile Suffers from Lack of Depth
Given the sustained success of Madden Mobile, one can only imagine the high expectations laid out for FIFA Mobile. After all, this is not only EA's but the world's biggest sports franchise. And as expected, EA took a super conservative approach in building this game by literally re-skinning every piece except the actual gameplay of Madden Mobile. One could actually argue that the pace of the gameplay itself is closer to American football than soccer. But despite the conservative if-it's-not-broken-don't-fix-it game design, FIFA Mobile has yet to reach the high expectations set for it.
From technical and core gameplay perspectives, FIFA Mobile is undoubtedly a great game. It's beautiful, performs well on low-end devices, offers super clear and accessible controls and is filled with a laundry list of features. Yet when all these good things are put together, FIFA Mobile falls flat.
In my opinion, the main reason why FIFA Mobile has not experienced same success than Madden is that the goal of the game is too easy to reach. In FIFA Mobile, the player is tasked to build the best team, which is one of the greatest challenges in professional sports. As we all know, building a team is a difficult challenge not only because of the club's financial restrictions but also due to the chemistry between teammates. And then there are the plaguing injuries and red cards, which would force constant changes into the squads as well as boost any player trading between players.
Sadly, FIFA Mobile has no concept of player chemistry, club financials, red cards or injuries. When you add the fact that the gameplay itself requires almost no strategy and very little skills, you're left with an overly simplified card collection game powered by grindy gacha loop. This is a shame since the game is beautifully crafted, very polished, filled with great features and sports one of the best virtual joystick controls I've ever played with. With few solid tweaks, I'm sure EA Mobile will score another touchdown, or at least a field goal, with FIFA Mobile.
