How Football Has Inspired So Many Genres of Games

Has any sport had as big of an influence on video games as football (soccer)? From the early arcade-style recreations to annual releases on PlayStation, Xbox and PC, football has led to sales figures that have helped grow companies like EA Sports and Sports Interactive into household names (at least in the households of gamers).

Football works well in games partly because it combines ideas that billions of people are familiar with (scoring, defending, passing and winning) with huge tactical and statistical depth. Developers have created everything from realistic management games and simulations to highly simplified arcade and mobile games.

Console and PC

For many players, the definitive football gaming experience has traditionally been found on a home console. The FIFA series, Pro Evolution Soccer (once International Superstar Soccer on Nintendo 64, and more recently eFootball), FIFA Street and other titles turned the sport into something that could be played (believably) from the living room.

On PlayStation and Xbox, basic representations of the sport eventually progressed into believable sims: licensed teams and stadiums, realistic player likenesses, in-depth tactics, career modes, online competition and sophisticated physics.

On PC, football found another beloved genre in management sims (chiefly Championship Manager and its evolution into Football Manager), where players could (and often still do) spend hundreds of hours worrying about transfers, tactics, youth development and finances rather than actually controlling a player on the pitch.

The appetite for football gaming reached the realm of online casino and instant-win games, where African football fans may search for games that pay real money in Cameroon. Football Tap, for example, takes the famous language of football – stadium, ball, shooting, and the anticipation of scoring – and uses a simple tap-based interaction. Developed by Onlyplay, it’s an instant-win game rather than a conventional football sim, with the result determined by the game’s underlying mechanics rather than a player’s footballing or tactical ability. Players should use responsible gambling tools and remember that no profit is guaranteed; there is always a risk of losing money.

That title is one of many examples of how far the imagery and emotional language of football can travel: the sport can inspire a console sim that aspires to mirror the real-life game (complete with famous commentators and promotional material from players such as Erling Haaland), a management series that has been used by professional managers such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, an arcade title, or something that can be played with a single tap.

Console to phone

The next major transformation was portability and mobile play. Developers had to decide what parts of the popular console games were essential and what could be removed, or reduced. FIFA 13 was available on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, and EA described its iOS launch as its biggest launch-day performance for an iOS game at that point. The mobile version retained the recognisable, polished FIFA presentation, but its controls were redesigned around a touchscreen. Reviewers noted that it was effectively a streamlined interpretation of the console experience, using virtual controls, gestures and simplified interaction.

A phone couldn’t reproduce every button, tactical option and physical interaction of a console controller, but it could offer something different: accessibility and pick-up-and-play football.

Football Manager takes a different route

Football Manager Handheld originally appeared on the PSP in 2006 as a separate, faster version of the simulation, designed around the constraints and possibilities of a handheld system. It then moved to iOS in 2010 and Android in 2012.

The developer Sports Interactive refined the general idea of “full game to basics” with Football Manager Classic, a streamlined mode within Football Manager 2013, was designed for people who wanted something less overwhelming than the full PC game, which was already becoming increasingly time-sapping. It then appeared as a standalone title on PlayStation Vita and then on iOS and Android tablets, eventually becoming Football Manager Touch.

Takeaway

The history of football games isn’t quite just a history of better graphics and more realistic simulations. It’s a history of translation: translating the sport into the strengths and limitations of each platform. From the controller-heavy football games of the PlayStation and Xbox era, through PC management simulations, handheld versions and touchscreen adaptations, football finds its way onto whatever screen players favour.