Fifa 15

In this blog I am going to be reviewing and talking about a different video game each week. I will also be talking a little about marketing strategy that these game developers use to gain market share and make gamers aware of their game. In this first blog I will talk a little about how many companies attract people to play their games. One of the first ways is ingenious. They release the game before it is ready to a certain group of people. These are called alphas and betas. This allows gamers to play the game while also sending feedback to the makers of the game so they can make the game better for the actual release. The players get to play a game before it comes out which makes them happy, while at the same time, they will make videos and post them to YouTube so that the general public can view these videos, which builds hype. Some smaller games which are played on the computer may make use of a service called Steam. Steam is a program a user downloads and then plays games off of it. It keeps a library of games which is nice so that you know exactly what you have and it tells you when you need updates. This service also has sales. Putting a game on Steam is a great way to extend product life. It can bring new life to a game, or be the life for a not-so-well known game. These are two great tools to build hype for a game and increase revenue. I will continue to talk about different alternatives in future blogs. So let’s get to Fifa 15. Fifa 15 "is an association football simulation video game developed by EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts." This game brings all of the best clubs and soccer players from around the world and allows players to control them. The consumer is able to play player versus player or player versus computer. One of the best parts of this game that I am going to touch on the most is Fifa Ultimate Team. So what is Ultimate team? It allows the user to create a team of players in any formation they want to. There is a live marketplace where gamers can buy and sell their players for coins which are earned through playing matches. This market functions almost exactly like a real market and responds to supply and demand. It also fluctuates depending on the time of day. When more people are online and trading cards prices are different from when less people are doing the same thing. It is not as simple as it seems to build your ultimate team. I have been playing Fifa for a long time and I have never even come close to getting the best players in the game much less the best team overall. This is what makes the game fun, the difficulty in getting certain "cards". Of course if you are lucky, you can acquire these cards in packs. Much like baseball cards or Pokémon, Fifa Ultimate Team also uses a digital card system. The packs are random and can help or hurt your club by buying the packs. You can hit a home-run or lose coins by buying the pack. Packs have a gambling feel to them and they can become addicting to buy. So how does Electronic Arts capitalize on this? Well you can use more than in game currency to purchase packs. Players can also use money to buy Fifa Points. So what can Fifa points do for you? Fifa points allow you to buy packs. So Electronic Arts makes money hand over fist selling content which costs them absolutely nothing to deliver. Once the game is created, they capitalize on people buying these packs. Overall Fifa 15 is a fun game I have played it myself and would recommend that anyone play it. There is a huge global following and the game is very competitive. EA also makes other sports games such as Madden which I may get to in future weeks.