Interview with FIFA: ‘We have had a number of sleepless nights to release this’

FOLLOWING FIFA’s very public divorce from EA Sports, a number of questions have been raised as to what this means for the future of FIFA games.

Developer EA Sports announced already that it will continue to make games in the same manner, just under the EA Sports FC brand.

FIFA wants you to celebrate the World Cup online.

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FIFA invites you to enjoy the World Cup online.Credit: Upland Metaverse
This is what you could win... I mean purchase

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This is what you might win… You could win this…I mean buyCredit: Upland Metaverse

Although it was believed that FIFA would continue creating high quality games using its licence, it now heavily relies on the metaverse as well as blockchain.

Four new initiatives were announced by the association. “games”After previous collaborations between Roblox and Algorand NFTs and gambling are now being developed.

We spoke to Danny Brown Wolf chief of staff, and Lindsay Lindsay Anne Aamodt head of marketing from Upland, about their collaboration with FIFA, and whether or not what they’re making is actually a game.

The way that their collaboration will work is that players can buy packs — sort of like FIFA 23’s FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) packs — and inside will be a number of random NFT items.

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This is mostly digital World Cup-branded merchandise that your character — called a Block Explorer — can own and use inside Upland’s virtual world.

For players, the most exciting part is the chance of winning a video clip of one the World Cup goals.

However, as with all digital assets, if the metaverse goes down, all of your purchases — which are made with real money — go down with it, and this includes everything you won as part of the campaign.

We’ve seen this many times in the past, most recently FTX — which was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange — recently went down, losing its users over $15billion (£13billion).

When asked how Upland is securing its future for its users, Danny responded: “Upland specifically is the largest Web3 metaverse. We have 310,000 landowners.

“Our hearts go out to our colleagues, but the way that Upland was built, our customers and us are not affected by the macro.”

Even though Upland appears to be safe, the question remains as to how the metaverse works.

FIFA was promising us a new football series and what we’re getting is glorified microtransactions and gambling.

Danny denied that FIFA’s project was even trying to be a game, despite what FIFA has said.

Lindsay says: “Gamers aren’t our only audience by any means. We’re going after a mass audience.

“It’s hard. We are aware they are anti-NFT. Gamers are harder to obtain than crypto aficionados.

Danny chimes in: “It [Upland]It was not intended to be a Triple-A game. It’s meant to be a social immersion strategy game.

“We’re not coming to gamers, like this is the future of video games. Not at all. This is complementary.”

They claim they want it to feel more like a game. According to their words: “We’re looking for game mechanics that are more like play, and not just collecting and calling it play.”

That’s it at this point. And in fact they’ve done what many companies partnering with FIFA have done.

They’ve taken existing assets and just reskinned them to be football-themed.

Roblox did something similar. Roblox took the existing sports games and swapped out the ball for a football.

Danny: “A lot of the functionality that we built for FIFA was existing functionality. Luckily, we already had a collaboration with the NFLTA that we had to use.”

FIFA seems to have had to make this compromise, as they are currently contacting Web3 companies for a short time to get the collaboration launched.

Lindsay says: “We signed a two-year deal with FIFA. The deal was signed… very recently.

“To the point where we have had a number of sleepless nights, to release this for the World Cup.

“No-one but a Web3 startup would be able to pull this off.”

There is still the question of whether this is gambling, microtransactions, or the dreaded Pay-to-Win model.

The World Cup merchandiser who has the most items will be eligible to win additional in-game assets like a replica stadium.

Lindsay was asked by Lindsay if she knew their ‘game’She admitted that it was only pay-to-win “I mean it is, but it’s a lot. It’s a stadium, it’s cars with the FIFA branding, it’s Block Explorers.”

We also inquired about the level of gambling. You buy NFTs for real cash and then sell them to other players in order to make a profit.

Danny responded: “We’re completely compliant… but we’re not gambling.”

We kept insisting that Upland still poses a risk. One in which people spend money in the hope of making money.

Danny appeared quite frustrated by my insistence eventually admitting: “But that’s any game you put in money. And you [gamers] do.

“The blockchain gaming industry is like 2% of the revenue of the actual gaming industry. And the industry is highly profitable.”

Gamers are aware of how lucrative this industry is and how we would love to return to microtransactions.

The metaverse is more interested in the model and hopes to capture a fraction of what we spend on our online games.

Upland’s strategy to differentiate itself from other NFTs is that you can build your assets and create your own.

We brought up The Sims. This game is now free-to play and boasts a vibrant community.

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This made it clearer that the metaverse was in place. Is it just The Sims or do you need to spend real money in order to join the metaverse?

Lindsay admits: “I don’t think there’s a huge difference, other than the fact that our transactions take place on the blockchain.”

Georgina, for the benefit of GLHF.

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