As per a FIFA media statement, “gaming and esports are among FIFA’s fastest-growing potential, as the organization continues to branch out into fresh digital spaces, venues, and games which are already embracing football supporters.”
It continues: “The new game features, all of which are created with web 3.0 and the vision of digital interaction in mind, are accessible throughout the game and each have their own unique spin on the world’s largest football competition.”
AI League: FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Edition, created by Altered State Machine, is a “4-on-4 casual football game, played amongst AI-controlled characters, with user interaction during entertaining and strategic situations.” As per a second announcement from Altered State Machine, the game will debut with a 10-week forecasting aspect, offering “digital and tangible rewards” to those who accurately anticipate real-world matches. Participants in the guessing game will get “four distinct artifacts” that will serve as their AI-controlled FIFA World Cup AI League players.
The second is FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 in the Upland Metaverse, a joint effort with Uplandme. Upland is a blockchain powered metaverse in which users may purchase and sell virtual real estate.
The FIFA partnership would let users to gather “authentic FIFA World Cup digital content, such as classic video footage of the competition,” as well as visit a virtual World Cup Lusail Stadium and Village to purchase for digital things.
Matchday Challenge: FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Edition is the third game. Matchday is a “very entertaining informal social forecasting game based on football cards,” as per press announcement.
According to FIFA, this is a “digital symbol of everlasting fandom.” FIFA has ended its almost 30-year partnership with EA, with FIFA 23 being the final EA Sports game to include the FIFA logo. EA will rename its series as EA Sports FC in 2020, asserting that “a modern era will commence in July 2023.”
Nevertheless, in a May statement, FIFA president Gianni Infantino stressed that only games with FIFA’s authorized license would be legitimate to football supporters. “I can tell you that the sole genuine, legitimate FIFA game will serve as the finest option for gamers and football enthusiasts,” he stated.
“The FIFA moniker is the sole original worldwide title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25, FIFA 26, etc. – the only constant is the FIFA brand, which will endure forever and represent The Best.” FIFA stated in a different May statement that the separation from EA will enable it to release new football computer games produced with third-party developers and marketers, “offering additional options for football and gaming enthusiasts” in the push to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 on Phygtl is a partnership with the “fan interaction smartphone application” Phygtl. According to the game’s synopsis, “fans may integrate a golden-globe-football into their real-world surroundings, retain a limited portion of it, and link and immortalize their selected FIFA World Cup photographs and videos.”
As per the governing body of football, conversations are now underway with “major game publishers, media businesses, and investors” about the creation of a fresh FIFA simulation football match for 2024 that would straight away compete with EA Sports FC. It further stated that other “non-simulation” titles had already begun development and will be released in the third quarter of 2022, with the first being a “custom gameplay experience” incorporating the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Unless further titles are revealed before the event starts on November 20, it seems FIFA was alluding to the Web 3.0 titles listed above.