Mel Brennan
Youth Team
I want to start out by submitting that I'm 33; I've been in this game - been a playa - for a long time...I started out gaming on the Telstar Ranger around 1977-1978 (http://www.pong-story.com/coleco_ranger.htm), and went from that to the TI-994A (http://www.matthewdesantis.com/store/photos/profiles/ti99.html) various Commodore systems, along with the Atari 2600 (of course) and, more to my liking, the Intellivision system (Tron Deadly Discs until my thumbs and fingers FELL OFF!). I've owned Apple IIe's for gaming (Elite was the ultimate gaming experience at that time, on my green phosphor screen), Commodore 64s (what WAS the name of that split screen auto racing game that kept my buddies and I up two nights straight???), a Sega Genesis, 3DO, PSX, PS2, Dreamcast, XBox, and, currently, an Alienware PC.
I've been around the block; just wanted to get those gaming credentials out of the way so that, later on, when some of you don't like what I might say, we don't waste any time debating whether or not I've been a gamer or not...the argument, the discussion lies elsewhere than in the typical "shoot the messenger" diatribes I've seen on this board and elsewhere...
I've played some version of FIFA every year since 1995; in 1996, when EA, struggling, announced that Madden and NHL would not come out that year on PSX, I turned fully to FIFA. Being an American (currently transplanted in to Scotland for the PhD), I had my eyes fully opened to the universe of real world football through the virtual reality of the FIFA series. This is not an uncommon experience among American gamers; I know many who, relatively ignorant to the movement that has been world football for the past 100 years (at least), took to the FIFA series. This was particularly the case in that crucial year of 1996, when its was, for the most part, all the quality sporting experience that EA was offering on PSX that year; those who played FIFA probably immersed themselves in it -and became fans of it - in a way that likely would not have happened had the other franchises been available.
So this entire world opened up to me; all those leagues...in all those nations? Imagine being a stats-and-player-obsessed youth, in the baseball context mainly, growing up in America. To then be exposed to this entirely new world, with so much more...what is the word? Depth, I think. So much that, for many Americans, was so new, so fresh, with none of the jaded-ness I now feel having actually WORKED in the highest levels of football now (more later), I felt truly alive in a gaming sense. Of course, with little coverage available in Northern Maryland at that time, FIFA was the way to "bone up" on who everyone was, what club/country they played for, etc....to establish that general base of knowledge such that, when I entered into a conversation about real-world football, I didn't sound wholly stupid or ignorant, even given that the World Cup had just been to the US....
In short, FIFA shaped my gaming (and occupational) life through its comprehensiveness...gameplay, at that time, was crucial, but a close second to the experience.
I think that EA knew this, and knows it still. Notice the evolution of the game. I've owned them all since then, on various platforms (from FIFA Soccer on the 3D0 - bought with money won from Trump's casinos, thanks Donald! - all the way through to FIFA 2004 on the PC), and the resources have ALWAYS been dedicated to the creating of an "experience." Not on whether or not the game is a reasonable representation of football on a pitch, but a different question altogether, the Disney question: "DID we create and experience?" Not reflecting on this qustion (i.e., not realizing that football is IN AND OF ITSELF an experience, and needeth not anything other than authenticity to reflect that, and not, of course this eye-candy, these bells and whistles), and going in a different direction, has been the bane of my football-gaming existence ever since.
EA bought the brand when an ISL-run FIFA finally firmed up its licensing by establishing many rights as being tied to FIFA membership, under Havelange, with Blatter, the current President, as General Secretary.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves; somebody at EA makes a DECISION, everyday, regarding where to dedicate resources. Do we focus on gameplay, and overhaul this 1998 gameplay engine? Or do we tweak it, and focus on eye -candy? Don't underestimate the power of the marketing folks either, who will drone on and on about "brand penetration" (Such as that they beleive they have with the FIFA franchise) and "demos" - demographics, i.e., who is actually purchasing - or getting their mommy to purchase - these games? Do they want arcadey-like play? Well, we've got to give them what they want...look at these focus groups... (sigh)
That dynamic, driven by a need to continuously generate value for shareholders (who established this captialistic silliness, anyway? How is it that one is supposed to contiinuously make more, each quarter? How is that even possible? Anyway...), is why FIFA IS the way it is. Its EA's nature to make this game the way that they do, many have argued, including myself.
Its like the story of the scorpion and the frog. Scorpion needs to cross the river...corners a frog and says "Take me across the river." Frog says, "What if you sting me?" Scorp replies "If I sting you while we're crossing the river, you'll die and I'll drown. We'll both lose. Why would I do such a stupid thing?" Frog, seeing this logic as infallible, agrees to take Scorp across.
Halfway across, Scorpion stings Frog fatally. As they both begin to sink to their doom, Frog asks "Why?"
Scorpion replies "Its my nature."
That's the way, for a long time, my compatriots and I saw EA, particularly with their work on FIFA. Each year, we would come to boards like this (from FIFA 98 RTWC on), and try to create a dialogue. Not TELL EA what to do, but submit how it might be done differently. And each year, without fail, some new eye-candy would be produced, with the same 98 RTWC gameplay engine, plus some little twist to it, and we'd all lament...
And buy it, and play it all day and all night. Its was FIFA. It was the only meaningful expression of football (on the PC, anyway, which is what I was switching to more and more, due to the online communities, patches, etc.).
It was EA nature, we always thought. They can't help it.
And then they let Tiburon re-cast Madden in the image of a wholesale (american) football fan, and that franchise has NEVER been the same.
And EA showed me that their nature wasn't "natural" at all. That, in fact, ACTIVE, daily decisions were being made to take, for example, Madden (and even NHL) NOT to the "next level," but to the next evolutionary jump.
How many of you, who have played FIFA like I have, can REALLY submit that there has ever really been an "evoltuonary jump?" Hell, I went to a friend's house right before I moved to the UK, and played ALL the old FIFAs...with the subtle exception of the 3DO version (which had this unique quirk that made you feel like the player you controlled was sort of "skating" on the pitch), the gameplay is...wait for it...
THE SAME.
The same since 1995. EA can "TM" and market various spins on the gameplay (like Off-the-Ball control...what was it last year?) all they want. You can dress a monkey up like Elvis Costello, that don't mean that the monkey's gonna grab a mike and belt out " I Want You" (great song, btw) in a soulful voice.
A monkey is a monkey is a monkey. The gameplay is the gameplay is the gameplay. They've tweaked it, but its the same engine that's always been there.
Now as we as consumers and FIFA enthusiasts evolved, and the FIFA series didn't join us in that evolution, we began to sort of feel like crackheads...
You know; that feeling like you want that fix, but not really, but you can't help it, and maybe its not that bad anyway and oh man I hate this...
I swear, the FIFA roller coaster, every year, made me feel like a junkie...and the sad thing was, on the PC, there was no alternative...no real competition.
Until now.
I've played PES3, with the www.prorevolution.com superptach 1 installed.
There simply is nothing better. Period.
Not only that, but there is no comparison to the playing experience while playing PES3. None. Period.
A good analogy is this: remember when Duke basketball began to make their runs in the 90s, with Danny Ferry and Christian Laettner, they mastered a way of playing AT basketball that made me HATE them.
They perfected things like shouting in pain everytime they drove to the basket, in the hopes that the refs might think they missed something and call a foul, even though they were likely not even touched. They propagated playing AT basketball, manipulating flaws in the administraton and expression of the game; they didn't just play the game the way its supposed to be played. And all those little "cheats," those little "white lies" on the court, over the course ofa game added up to a real difference in the outcome, particularly when the game was close.
Guess who EA reminds me of? Duke basketball. All those little tweaks add up to a result that they can sell us every year, but that don't make it football.
For many of us, it was hard to fully see that, in a way that gets internalized, until PES3 came along.
PES3 is not some code-based conglomeration that, in sum total, is supposed to equal some sort of football-like (they hide behind "arcade") experience. PES3 is an authentic replication of football. I feel like I've touched the face of God when I play that game. It feels so good to have control, to be able create, and suffer, natural outcomes of decisions I make (not, seemingly, scripted, and if it is, I don't FEEL the scripting, which makes all the difference) on the pitch, in real-time...I nearly wept.
I take football seriously. I used to work for CONCACAF as theHead ofSpeical Projects, in New York City, for nigh-on three years, and left because, in my idealism, I observed that the CONCACAF leadership doesn't take fotball seriously. I guess all the things in my life that I have a passion about I take seriously...that's why I don't understand why we don't hear stories of EA Canada guys up all night long, pulling their hair out to get the OK to write new core code and make a game that is to world football what Madden is to American football, front and back-end inclusive.
I mean, Francis Ford Coppola faked a seizure/heart attack on the floor of the studio prez' office when that studio head wanted to replace Al Pacino with Robert Redford as Michael Corleone in the Godfather films...that's what it takes oftentimes to hold your ground and create something special in this world of greed, short-term gain and, in the main, self-hate and apathy.
I'll finish with this. Historian Richard Hofstadter talked about the difference between intelligence and intellect. He said:
"Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate and predictable range...Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind...Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole."
Evaluating the evaluations...do you get me now?
FIFA 99-2004 and PES3: the difference between evaluating various particulars in order to gain access to a short-term gain, AND evaluating the evaluations.
One look at the opening movies from PES 3 and FIFA 2004 (let alone the actual gameplay and gaming experiences of those games) makes it clear that EA has developed its football game intelligently, while Konami developed theirs intellectually.
I am, forever, in Konami's debt, and have only this to say to EA:
Hire me, or find the equivalent of Tiburon (for world fotball) out there in the marketplace, and get out of the way. Your intelligent, short-term-gain approach to the FIFA franchsie is stifling an intellectual game development process from manifestng, and attaching to the greatest set of licenses in the world, a great game.
Mel Brennan
I've been around the block; just wanted to get those gaming credentials out of the way so that, later on, when some of you don't like what I might say, we don't waste any time debating whether or not I've been a gamer or not...the argument, the discussion lies elsewhere than in the typical "shoot the messenger" diatribes I've seen on this board and elsewhere...
I've played some version of FIFA every year since 1995; in 1996, when EA, struggling, announced that Madden and NHL would not come out that year on PSX, I turned fully to FIFA. Being an American (currently transplanted in to Scotland for the PhD), I had my eyes fully opened to the universe of real world football through the virtual reality of the FIFA series. This is not an uncommon experience among American gamers; I know many who, relatively ignorant to the movement that has been world football for the past 100 years (at least), took to the FIFA series. This was particularly the case in that crucial year of 1996, when its was, for the most part, all the quality sporting experience that EA was offering on PSX that year; those who played FIFA probably immersed themselves in it -and became fans of it - in a way that likely would not have happened had the other franchises been available.
So this entire world opened up to me; all those leagues...in all those nations? Imagine being a stats-and-player-obsessed youth, in the baseball context mainly, growing up in America. To then be exposed to this entirely new world, with so much more...what is the word? Depth, I think. So much that, for many Americans, was so new, so fresh, with none of the jaded-ness I now feel having actually WORKED in the highest levels of football now (more later), I felt truly alive in a gaming sense. Of course, with little coverage available in Northern Maryland at that time, FIFA was the way to "bone up" on who everyone was, what club/country they played for, etc....to establish that general base of knowledge such that, when I entered into a conversation about real-world football, I didn't sound wholly stupid or ignorant, even given that the World Cup had just been to the US....
In short, FIFA shaped my gaming (and occupational) life through its comprehensiveness...gameplay, at that time, was crucial, but a close second to the experience.
I think that EA knew this, and knows it still. Notice the evolution of the game. I've owned them all since then, on various platforms (from FIFA Soccer on the 3D0 - bought with money won from Trump's casinos, thanks Donald! - all the way through to FIFA 2004 on the PC), and the resources have ALWAYS been dedicated to the creating of an "experience." Not on whether or not the game is a reasonable representation of football on a pitch, but a different question altogether, the Disney question: "DID we create and experience?" Not reflecting on this qustion (i.e., not realizing that football is IN AND OF ITSELF an experience, and needeth not anything other than authenticity to reflect that, and not, of course this eye-candy, these bells and whistles), and going in a different direction, has been the bane of my football-gaming existence ever since.
EA bought the brand when an ISL-run FIFA finally firmed up its licensing by establishing many rights as being tied to FIFA membership, under Havelange, with Blatter, the current President, as General Secretary.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves; somebody at EA makes a DECISION, everyday, regarding where to dedicate resources. Do we focus on gameplay, and overhaul this 1998 gameplay engine? Or do we tweak it, and focus on eye -candy? Don't underestimate the power of the marketing folks either, who will drone on and on about "brand penetration" (Such as that they beleive they have with the FIFA franchise) and "demos" - demographics, i.e., who is actually purchasing - or getting their mommy to purchase - these games? Do they want arcadey-like play? Well, we've got to give them what they want...look at these focus groups... (sigh)
That dynamic, driven by a need to continuously generate value for shareholders (who established this captialistic silliness, anyway? How is it that one is supposed to contiinuously make more, each quarter? How is that even possible? Anyway...), is why FIFA IS the way it is. Its EA's nature to make this game the way that they do, many have argued, including myself.
Its like the story of the scorpion and the frog. Scorpion needs to cross the river...corners a frog and says "Take me across the river." Frog says, "What if you sting me?" Scorp replies "If I sting you while we're crossing the river, you'll die and I'll drown. We'll both lose. Why would I do such a stupid thing?" Frog, seeing this logic as infallible, agrees to take Scorp across.
Halfway across, Scorpion stings Frog fatally. As they both begin to sink to their doom, Frog asks "Why?"
Scorpion replies "Its my nature."
That's the way, for a long time, my compatriots and I saw EA, particularly with their work on FIFA. Each year, we would come to boards like this (from FIFA 98 RTWC on), and try to create a dialogue. Not TELL EA what to do, but submit how it might be done differently. And each year, without fail, some new eye-candy would be produced, with the same 98 RTWC gameplay engine, plus some little twist to it, and we'd all lament...
And buy it, and play it all day and all night. Its was FIFA. It was the only meaningful expression of football (on the PC, anyway, which is what I was switching to more and more, due to the online communities, patches, etc.).
It was EA nature, we always thought. They can't help it.
And then they let Tiburon re-cast Madden in the image of a wholesale (american) football fan, and that franchise has NEVER been the same.
And EA showed me that their nature wasn't "natural" at all. That, in fact, ACTIVE, daily decisions were being made to take, for example, Madden (and even NHL) NOT to the "next level," but to the next evolutionary jump.
How many of you, who have played FIFA like I have, can REALLY submit that there has ever really been an "evoltuonary jump?" Hell, I went to a friend's house right before I moved to the UK, and played ALL the old FIFAs...with the subtle exception of the 3DO version (which had this unique quirk that made you feel like the player you controlled was sort of "skating" on the pitch), the gameplay is...wait for it...
THE SAME.
The same since 1995. EA can "TM" and market various spins on the gameplay (like Off-the-Ball control...what was it last year?) all they want. You can dress a monkey up like Elvis Costello, that don't mean that the monkey's gonna grab a mike and belt out " I Want You" (great song, btw) in a soulful voice.
A monkey is a monkey is a monkey. The gameplay is the gameplay is the gameplay. They've tweaked it, but its the same engine that's always been there.
Now as we as consumers and FIFA enthusiasts evolved, and the FIFA series didn't join us in that evolution, we began to sort of feel like crackheads...
You know; that feeling like you want that fix, but not really, but you can't help it, and maybe its not that bad anyway and oh man I hate this...
I swear, the FIFA roller coaster, every year, made me feel like a junkie...and the sad thing was, on the PC, there was no alternative...no real competition.
Until now.
I've played PES3, with the www.prorevolution.com superptach 1 installed.
There simply is nothing better. Period.
Not only that, but there is no comparison to the playing experience while playing PES3. None. Period.
A good analogy is this: remember when Duke basketball began to make their runs in the 90s, with Danny Ferry and Christian Laettner, they mastered a way of playing AT basketball that made me HATE them.
They perfected things like shouting in pain everytime they drove to the basket, in the hopes that the refs might think they missed something and call a foul, even though they were likely not even touched. They propagated playing AT basketball, manipulating flaws in the administraton and expression of the game; they didn't just play the game the way its supposed to be played. And all those little "cheats," those little "white lies" on the court, over the course ofa game added up to a real difference in the outcome, particularly when the game was close.
Guess who EA reminds me of? Duke basketball. All those little tweaks add up to a result that they can sell us every year, but that don't make it football.
For many of us, it was hard to fully see that, in a way that gets internalized, until PES3 came along.
PES3 is not some code-based conglomeration that, in sum total, is supposed to equal some sort of football-like (they hide behind "arcade") experience. PES3 is an authentic replication of football. I feel like I've touched the face of God when I play that game. It feels so good to have control, to be able create, and suffer, natural outcomes of decisions I make (not, seemingly, scripted, and if it is, I don't FEEL the scripting, which makes all the difference) on the pitch, in real-time...I nearly wept.
I take football seriously. I used to work for CONCACAF as theHead ofSpeical Projects, in New York City, for nigh-on three years, and left because, in my idealism, I observed that the CONCACAF leadership doesn't take fotball seriously. I guess all the things in my life that I have a passion about I take seriously...that's why I don't understand why we don't hear stories of EA Canada guys up all night long, pulling their hair out to get the OK to write new core code and make a game that is to world football what Madden is to American football, front and back-end inclusive.
I mean, Francis Ford Coppola faked a seizure/heart attack on the floor of the studio prez' office when that studio head wanted to replace Al Pacino with Robert Redford as Michael Corleone in the Godfather films...that's what it takes oftentimes to hold your ground and create something special in this world of greed, short-term gain and, in the main, self-hate and apathy.
I'll finish with this. Historian Richard Hofstadter talked about the difference between intelligence and intellect. He said:
"Intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly narrow, immediate and predictable range...Intellect, on the other hand, is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind...Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for the meanings of situations as a whole."
Evaluating the evaluations...do you get me now?
FIFA 99-2004 and PES3: the difference between evaluating various particulars in order to gain access to a short-term gain, AND evaluating the evaluations.
One look at the opening movies from PES 3 and FIFA 2004 (let alone the actual gameplay and gaming experiences of those games) makes it clear that EA has developed its football game intelligently, while Konami developed theirs intellectually.
I am, forever, in Konami's debt, and have only this to say to EA:
Hire me, or find the equivalent of Tiburon (for world fotball) out there in the marketplace, and get out of the way. Your intelligent, short-term-gain approach to the FIFA franchsie is stifling an intellectual game development process from manifestng, and attaching to the greatest set of licenses in the world, a great game.
Mel Brennan
) but I cannot resist to write a short reaction on your post. I think I write a bigger one tomorrow 
