The Community of FIFA Mods
From Mod Mania
The Community of FIFA Mods
EA Sports’ first football video game was first released in 1993 with FIFA International Soccer, which was originally released on on gaming systems such as SNES, Sega CD and Genesis. From this early beginning the EA Sports FIFA franchise has become the most successful sports videogame franchise in the world having surpased the sale of 100 million units across it’s lifetime. However FIFA has not always been the most popular football game, it’s had competition from This is Soccer and Pro Evolution Soccer along the way. Major factors in the success of EA Sports franchise have been exclusive liscencing rights and running windows as a dominant gaming platform. Unlike the other franchises this has allowed FIFA to have a unique bond between the game and the modder.
It took 5 years for gamers to start modding the EA Sports FIFA series, with the first mods starting to appear for FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98. The mods for this game were mainly concerned with the lack of authentisity, mainly with the generic use of kits, boots, and ad-boards and also the lack of leagues. The number of mods for FIFA 98 was relatively small as it was a new concept for the franchise, however FIFA 99 saw a dramatic rise in the number of mods available for the game. Mods for 99 were mainly focused around creating sponsored kits, as gamers wanted to be able play with their favourite teams in their authentic kits, adding a greating sense of realism to the game. Unlike the FIFA 98, 99 broadened the scope of kit modding. Not only were modders uploading kits from that season, but they were also a small group modders uploading iconic kits from previous seasons. A new graphic engine for FIFA 2001 saw the game feature sponsored kits (including a third for all major European teams) and face details on many of the players. However this did not curb the enthusiasm for kit mods, it only inreased them. Modders took on the notion that whatever EA Sports could do, they could do better. In addition to the increase in kit uploads, modders were also creating mods from team’s stadiums and their turf patterns to goalkeeping gloves and a greater range of player faces. In FIFA 2002, the amount of mods decreased from that of 2001. This decrease was mainly due to two aspects of the footballing community; sponsors were currently running on a two-year turnover, meaning they would release new boots, away and third kits every two years, and EA Sports used the same boots and kit generator from 2001-2003. Through this period, EA Sports had also provided another hinderance to the modding community, until FIFA 2005 there were only a maximum of two boots editable in the database. This meant that all players who previously wore black boots now all wore the boot you uploaded in its place, and the same problem for those who wore white boots. The inlcusion of eight boots in FIFA 2005 (five generic and three adidas) and the improved edit a player feature allowed modders to upload eight new boots to the game and then change the appropriate players who wore them. FIFA 2005 also saw the inclusion of a kit-purchasing feature, where gamers could spend credit points and purchase the third kit of the top teams around Europe. FIFA World Cup 2006 expanded on the purchasing feature, and gave the first glimpse at the decline of modding in the franchise. World Cup 2006 also featured a sponsored kit-purchasing feature, which was based around significant historical kits, as well as a boot purchasing system where you could then allocate them to players. Although the FIFA ‘07 continued the third kit-purchasing feature, it scrapped it for the boots, and instead replaced it with a more comprehensive list of inbuilt boots players wore. More defined graphics and the expansion of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game saw a decline in PC users and as a result a decline in modding uploads. Due to success of the fifteen season long manager modes in FIFA 09-11, modders have started to concentrate their skills on adding lower leagues and teams into the games database.
Modding utilities have been allowing gamers to mod their FIFA titles since the FIFA ’98 title. Modding utilities are programs that allow gamers to edit the database or upload boots and kits. Through the years there have been a number of utilites avaliable from the FIFAMania series (created by Fabio Bresciani), the Kit and Boot Raptor series (created by GamingAccess) to the FeD series (created by Chau Le). EA Sport also contributed to the FIFA modding following by bringing out their own database modifier. EA Sports Creation Master was created by Chau Le (creator of the FeD series) and was produced under the EA Sports banner for FIFA Football 2003-2004. However EA Sports did not fund the 2005 database and Chau Le was the sole creator. Chau Le’s Creation Centre was hugely popular until the realease of Rinaldo Zocca’s Creation Master; as a result of this popularity Chau Le produced his utility for just a year more, discontinuing his Creation Centre utility in 2008. Rinaldo’s Master utilites series first release was CM07 (Creation Master 07) for FIFA 07. CM07 was instantly popular among FIFA modders due to the level of accuracy and scope of mods to the database available. CM07 like most database editors allowed you to edit every essential part of the game; you can load your personally created kits and boots for players and referees as well as creating new teams, tournaments and players that are built into the games database. CM07 was the first of the of Master utilities series. After the success of CM07, Rinaldo broadened the range of database editors for FIFA 08 and released them in a package, titled FIFA Master Tools Pack 08. FIFA Master 08 includes all ten of Rinaldo’s FIFA utilities (Creation Master, Database Master, Armband Master, FAT Master, File Master, Free Kick Master, Internal Master, Manager Master, Save My Career Master and Sound Master). Many of these utilities functions overlap, for example Creation Master, Database Master, FAT Master, File Master and Internal Master all deal with either changing player information or graphics, yet Creation Master covers both in the one program. Others such as Armband Master add very little to the overall feel of the game, yet it’s a handy utility to have for all those kit pendants. Through FIFA 09 – 11 Rinaldo’s utilities have been limited to a select few Internal Master, Sound Master and Creation Master, also with the editions of Face Design Master and Kit Design Master. With the release of the Xbox 360 (2005) and Playstation 3 (2006) the number of PC gamers and modders has dropped considerably, this drop has meant a decline in mod utilities and files available online. Despite this drop there is still demand for Rinaldo’s Creation Master on modding forums.
The active participation in FIFA modding forums has dropped significantly since FIFA 08. This decline is mainly due to the games popularity on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. FIFA most popular modding forum is ‘www.soccergamming.com’, this website holds forums from FIFA 2002 to the current FIFA 11. From the 05 to the 08 forums there is an editing forum as well as a kit forum. The 09 forums includes an added faces forum due to the release of Rinaldo’s Face Master 09. The FIFA 10 and 11 forums are both structured the same way, with a main editing forum, with sub kits, faces and mods forums. These forums are place where fellow modders can express mods, which they wish to create, or an idea for someone else to create. The forums are a generally productive place, especially when it comes to creating mods for lower league clubs and leagues. Instead of one-modder researching team kits and players, they will often call for supporters of particular team or other modders to send in kit photos and team sheets in order to create an accurate database.
Despite the decline in the sheer number of mods available for the latest titles in the franchise, there has been a change in the way modders now adapt the game. From the early days of the late ‘90’s to mid ‘00’s, where modders were mostly concerned with kit appearance and the graphics of the game, to the latest editions (FIFA 09-11), where modders (through Rinaldo’s Creation Master utility) have been able to include lower league teams and integrate them into the both country and european cups and leagues.
References:
http://www.sweetpatch.tv/index.cfm?articleid=1253 http://www.soccergaming.com/ http://www.fifa4fans.de/en/fifa-11/overview http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101104006782/en
