The first passes
It has been a lot of hard work to get to this point, but football video games date back to the first decades of the industry itself. It is thus considered that The first digital version of this sport appeared on the Binatone TV Master IV console, launched in 1976.Like many of the consoles of that time, it was a device to play Pong, the game in which two paddles try to insert a ball – actually a square – into their opponent’s goal, but this device also had variations of the game based on squash and football, although the latter consisted of simply adding a second pair of paddles to the game.
The launch of more powerful portable consoles such as the Intellivision (1979) and the Atari 2600 (1977) helped soccer games become more similar to the sport they imitated. In 1980, “NASL Soccer” was released, a game developed by Mattel that implemented the isometric perspective, giving the game more three-dimensionality, which years later would be adopted by most titles in this sports genre. Atari was not far behind and in 1981 launched its own football game “Pele’s Soccer” which, although it was a step back in terms of gameplay, showing only colorful dots instead of humans, made the brilliant decision to license the name of ‘O Rei’ as part of the advertising campaign.
The rapid advances in video games were reflected in the race to improve electronic versions of football. Thus, in 1983, “International Soccer” was released for the Commodore 64, adding the innovation of better graphics and the inclusion of audiences in stadiums for the first time. Meanwhile, Arcades saw the arrival in 1985 of “Tekhan World Cup,” a game created by the Japanese company now known as Tecmo that used a top-down perspective to present players with a clear perspective of the game.. In addition to its improved graphics, the title is remembered for its innovative gameplay that made it easier to control the direction and power of shots, making the matches fluid and frenetic like real sport.
For its part, the console of the moment, Nintendoalso released its own football video game in 1985, simply titled “Soccer”, which realistically simulated the movement of the ball rather than just being stuck to the player when in possession of it. The game was well received by critics at the time, although it was described as slower than some of its rivals.
From pixels to balls
The arrival of 16-bit consoles in the late 1980s marked a turning point in football video games. Graphics improved significantly, gameplay became more complex and realistic, and official licences for teams and players began to appear.
In that aspect, The first franchise was not FIFA or Winning Eleven, but “Kick Off”Developed by the Italian-British company Dino Dini and published by Anco Software in 1989, it was a more realistic simulation game that not only improved the intelligence of the players controlled by the computer, but also included new features such as injuries, the attitude of referees and, for the first time, establishing different statistics and skills for the members of each team.
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And while this is enough to earn the franchise a place in electronic soccer history, Dino Dini was soon crowned in 1990 with the release of “Player Manager,” the first game that allowed you to simultaneously manage your own soccer team as enter the playing field, paving the way for other games in the genre such as “Championship Manager” (1992) and its successor “Football Manager” (2005), as well as career modes in several later games.
“Kick Off” would have as its rival “Sensible Soccer”, developed by Sensible Software in 1992 and noted for its fluid gameplay, although these two franchises would soon see their prominence disappear with the launch of two titans.
Duel of titans
The date was December 15, 1993, when a company named Electronic Arts released “FIFA International Soccer” on the Sega Genesis and forever changed the landscape of sports video games. Developed by Extended Play Productions (now EA Vancouver), The title was not only the first to incorporate official licenses for teams and players, giving greater authenticity to the game, but it was also a pioneer in 3D football simulation.since despite being two-dimensional, it presented an isometric perspective that simulated three-dimensionality, while offering a more realistic view of the field and the players.
The game was a financial success and led to EA starting a franchise based on FIFA that lasted until 2022, when the company abandoned its agreement with the soccer federation to create a new video game series under the name “EA Sports FC.”
For its part, Konami was also working on its own soccer game under the name “International Superstar Soccer” (abbreviated ISS), which was released in 1994. The game was moderately successful and It served as the starting point for a franchise that would serve as a rival to FIFA for years to come.
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This is where the writer of this article can recount his experience, spending countless afternoons playing, and being defeated by a relative with a strange obsession with the Italian team and its star Roberto Baggio.
The era of 3D
Despite its supremacy on the playing field, the first truly 3D football game came not from FIFA, ISS, “Kick Off” or “Sensible Soccer”, but from Sega with the arcade “Virtua Striker” (1994), a game that pioneered the use of polygonal 3D modelling and texture mapping to create quite realistic graphics for the time.
Meanwhile, the first soccer game with 3D graphics to reach consoles was “Actua Soccer” (1995), developed by the British company Gremlin Interactiva and released on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and PC, representing a clear advance in terms of gameplay and graphics with the rest of its rivals, although this advantage did not last for long. So three years later EA once again found itself at the top with the release of its classic “FIFA World Cup 98″while Konami found greater success with the release for PlayStation of its new franchise “Pro Evolution Soccer” (PES), better known in our region under the title “Winning Eleven”.
This fight for supremacy would span the next decade, with both companies pushing each other toward greater technical, graphical, and gameplay innovations in a showdown that has been called the “greatest rivalry” in the history of sports video games. Although debatable, the consensus I heard among those connoisseurs of the genre was that although FIFA had the licenses and a greater number of game options, PES presented a better quality of playability, with more fluid and realistic movements, as well as a better simulation of the game. sport.
This delicate balance was broken with the release of “FIFA 09″, game that implemented a mode called Ultimate Team that allowed players to assemble their teams by opening card packs with the players’ names. This mode, which also allowed you to buy and sell your cards, proved extremely popular and became the main attraction of the EA franchise to date.
Although curiously the current panorama has seen the technical disappearance of both franchises, since EA abandoned the license of the FIFA name to name its new game as “EA Sports FC 24”, while in 2022 Konami announced the hiatus of the PES series, returning two years later with a new soccer game called “eFootball” that adopts the free-to-play model.
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A passion that endures
With half a century of existence, what makes football games continue to arouse so much passion? For Diego Alonso Gomez Perales, regional champion of EA Sports Fifa 23 Amateur Cup, this perennial popularity is due to the fact that football video games allow you to feel like you are part of the sport.
“I played it since I was a child and I would have liked to dedicate myself to it,” he said in communication with El Comercio. “In the EA FC pro 11 vs 11 club modality, in which I participate in the leagues with my teammates and where we have been three-time national champions three years in a row, I can feel in a way that I fulfill this dream of having a career in football, only now in a virtual way.”
In this regard, he believes that the reason why football video games attract so many viewers is due to the enthusiasm for the ‘king of sports’. “Already established football games such as EA FC attract a lot of viewers and competitions that are broadcast on streaming platforms usually have very high viewing numbers.”
Thus, football is now not only popular when played on the pitch, but also on video game consoles, and many current clubs are now also betting on esports, another battlefield where people can confront their skills and passion for the king of sports.