What can football learn from FIFA 14?

I was in London last week and had a chance to listen Peter Moore, Chief Operating Officer of EA Sports at the “Leaders in Football” conference. As a gaming aficionado, I’ve obviously heard of him before and I have been aware of his role in developing FIFA series. He made a great presentation with loads of numbers and data. There were many points Mr. Moore had mentioned but one of his remarks is the reason why I have written this article:

"FIFA games or any titles of EA Sports do not have the aim to replace the original game. We are trying to widen the real life experience via the games and in a way catalyze."

Picking up from this point, I have thought of writing an article based on EA Sports’ achievements in FIFA series and what football as sport can learn from FIFA 14 and other football games.

I also believe that, football certainly being the most loved and followed sport on earth shall look for new inspiration points for future development. Here, games may be a good source of inspiration. 

Here we go:

1) Data matters:

Football clubs have long been over estimating and bragging with the number of their fans. However they have forgotten the fact that the fan base without any engagement other than weekly fixtures is not so meaningful. What matters is what you do with those fans. I believe we have a lot to learn from FIFA 14 in terms of acquiring fan data and evaluating it to reach meaningful conversions.

EA Sports knows how many gamers are playing with which teams right now. They have the data of the number of players selecting teams when they start the game. Most importantly FIFA 13 sold more than 15 million copies, is there a better public poll than this?

*Photo by @pitchlondon

2) Statistics matter:

With the developments in tracking technology, it is great to see the statistics such as running distance, speed, shot speed, possession and heat maps. Thanks to those statistics and more importantly and obviously to social media, people are using their second screens more and more.

FIFA 14  along with many other football games bring those statistics instantly on screen as you play. It is very soon that such a diverse range of statistics will appear on TV's, smart phones or tablets without any human touch. The company that will do this (I believe EA Sports will nail this as they are also the naming sponsor of TV graphics in Barclays' Premier League) will make a huge step and the meaningful use of statistics will begin. I believe we are still in the very primitive stages of this.

3) Engagement matters:

I will show you two fantastic videos. I would advise you to put your headphones on and watch with a good volume:

Manchester City Kit Launch

Gareth Bale's Real Madrid Unveiling

These two videos show that it is not really necessary to spend a lot of money on productions in order to create inspiring and engaging videos. The use of games in such manner will certainly increase in the upcoming years.

4) Education matters:

We are in the days of acknowledging the fact that with each generation the attention span is decreasing and authorities responsible of education are working hard to come up with innovative solutions. This is the reason why usage of tablets in educational programs is increasing. This is the same with football. If EA Sports or other developers would open their game engines, preferably for free of charge, to third party developers, football education can make a huge leap forward.

Think of this, a 13-year-old kid can download next day's training program to his console or tablet and recreate at home. On next day he will certainly be more successful on the pitch and learn faster.  If this kind of interaction can be managed, it would mean shorter learning times and would set new targets in a relatively short career of a football player.

5) Promotion matters:

Last season a friend of mine criticized the FIFA 13 Soundtrack. I told him that FIFA franchise needed music industry before (in the end of 90s start of 2000s) but now music industry needs FIFA franchise for promotion. This is the same for federations, leagues and clubs. It is a must for all football family in each country to take place in football games. It would be very hard to reach more than 15 million gamers apart from TV broadcasting, provided that you are one of the top 50 clubs in the world. Still it is very tough to measure those interactions and converging them into meaningful relationships is another issue. Representation in FIFA games is important and will continue to be vital. Federations, leagues and clubs need FIFA franchise as much as EA Sports needs them.

6) Brands matter:

I read an article last month and surprised to see that FIFA series may have never been presented in the first place. In short, EA Sports' Europe office worked hard to convince the HQ and EA Sports Canada Office finally produced the game. Naming the game is another story: EA Sports had been giving the names of the organizing bodies or leagues of all sports to their games: NBA, NFL, NHL etc. When the game was about to be launched EA people went to Zurich to speak ISL representatives who ran the marketing operations on behalf of FIFA back then and got themselves a nice 5 year deal. Right afterwards they started to deal with associations and leagues. This should have been an awakening point for sports marketing industry in Europe. Think of the naming rights in FIFA 14: Federations, clubs, players, managers, and stadiums. It should have been an epiphany for those associations and clubs in those years.*

7) FIFA Ultimate Team matters:

If you are football fan at my age (32) Panini collections from Euro 1996, FIFA World Cup 1998, Euro 2000 and FIFA World Cup 2002 probably played an important role in your love of the game. Panini is still in the business and continues doing an amazing job but FIFA franchise reinvented this tradition in digital. You can open up packs in Ultimate Team and try to field strongest team possible in the actual game. Ultimate Team mode is also the most important revenue source of the FIFA franchise. I believe in the near future Ultimate Team will grow bigger and will become a product that will be bought from shops, stores.  

For this to happen EA Sports needs a company like Panini and Panini, investing in digital collections since 2006, needs EA Sports to expand their presence. This kind of partnership can turn Ultimate Team into a global phenomenon. Think of buying gold packs from your store, sticking them in collection books for each league and with the codes you can redeem the players online. Perfection. 

8) Social Media matters:

A new era may start if some company creates a meaningful relationship between social media and games. Football Manager franchise has been testing this for the past few years. EA Sports is more present in video sites like Youtube and Twitch thanks to super-fans and people that do trades. I believe this participation will continue to increase and interactive media will disrupt the recently present traditional-social media relationship. I am thinking of EA Sports channel on TV where you can turn on and watch sports that matters (a global competition, FIWC maybe. Or follow your favorite player) This can be huge, look at League of Legends, Starcraft, World of Warcraft.

9) Technology matters:

We have been discussing the goal line technology for years. First time I wrote about was in 2007 and now we are in 2013. We have seen the goal line technology used, we know the cost of it and its application totally falls under the responsibility of football bodies.

In FIFA franchise, this technology has been present for decades. The game can determine 100% sure whether the goal is in or not, offside or not and even they can create a referee that gives all decisions right. I believe that this will be a feature in football broadcasting in the next 5-10 years. As we are watching the matches live, we can switch on to FIFA mode and see that TV feed is instantly rendered and watch the match with the games' perfect referees.

10) FIFA Interactive World Cup matters

Do you know that FIFA (I am referring to the governing body this time) has regulations for FIFA series' FIFA Interactive World Cup mode? This mode has been played by a record breaking 2,5 million people last year and destined to grow in the upcoming years. Yes it will never be a FIFA World Cup and no one wants it to be but it will be huge. What we learn from this mode is the gist of this long article: With good planning it is in our hands to create valuable partnerships with franchises like FIFA 14 before too late.    

If you don't communicate with your consumer someone else will come and communicate - Peter Moore

@ilkerugur

ilkerugur@gmail.com 

Well said

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Abraham Lincoln

Geoff Vuleta Interview in Fast Company

I came across this great interview by Geoff Vuleta of Fahrenheit 212 in the last issue of Fast Company. It is brilliant. Not very long but insprational.

I would love to meet this guy and speak about his experience for an hour.

Here you go:

Big idea: To create a new kind of consultancy, helping big companies innovate by melding the best of Ideo and McKinsey. "Having an idea without knowing how it makes money is as valueless as knowing where growth lies without the idea," says Geoff Vuleta, 48, critiquing the stereotypical design firm and the classic management consultant. The New Zealander and former ad man develops large-scale growth initiatives for major firms seeking $100 million-plus in new revenue. He makes money only if the idea works: "A funny thing happens when you only profit from a job if the job itself profits." He's now working on projects for the likes of Nestlé, LG, and Adidas, and booked more business in Q1 2010 than in all of 2009.

Why innovation scares CEOs: It's not innovation so much as its perceived (and actual) cost. "The animals have overtaken the farm, and many lack operational or commercial expertise. Everybody's spending money, and the company's still getting only 4% growth. The future will be when people finally realize that commercial acumen and ideas have to be done in tandem with each other."

Big break: After a successful career as an ad exec, Vuleta got a call from Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts. "He said, 'I want to be an idea company, you're an ideas guy; why don't we see if you're any good?' I have to give him the biggest credit for my life as it is today." Ultimately, Vuleta felt he couldn't be as idea-obsessed as he wanted at Saatchi and created Fahrenheit 212.

Inspiration? "I have never really had role models, [but] rather a forever-expanding list of people doing things I admire." On it now: Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman ("zigging while his industry zags"); Etsy founder Rob Kalin ("not for what he sells, because I would not be seen dead buying any of it, but for what his business has spawned"); and the Gilt Groupe team ("they create the Walmart Thanksgiving opening crush every day at 11:59").

Greatest strength/weakness: "I'm a believer. If you say you're good, I think you're good. But I'm the last person to work out that something's wrong."

On being bi-continental: Vuleta commuted between New York and New Zealand for two years. "I naively thought I could build Fahrenheit from New Zealand. The moment I stopped doing that, the business started to grow." He still returns every nine weeks to see daughter Isabella, 13. "Perversely, I spend more time with her now than I did when I lived there."

Flight of the Conchords or Lord of the Rings? Conchords. "Just a totally novel idea."

Frequent flying: "I fly every week of my life." How many miles does he have? "I don't know, but when I divorced my first wife seven years ago, we split everything in half, and she got a million miles. I thought, 'What the hell has she done to earn those miles?' Except put up with me. Maybe I should have given her all of them."

If he could fix anything about air travel, he'd fix ... "The journey from when you get out of the car to when you get on the plane." It should be more Disneyesque: "As a kid, I learned about Disneyland and how, even when you're queueing, you're entertained."

Originally wanted to be ... a chef. "The irony is that I was never a very good cook. I harbored this dream for 11 years. All this time, my parents are saying, 'We don't think you're going to enjoy it.' Blow me down, they were right. I took the last bus home on my first night working in a kitchen and never went back."

Tweeter? "I'm a fraud. I signed up because I went to get angry at somebody once, but then people started to follow me. But I wasn't sending any tweets out -- this is embarrassing -- so my company tweets every day, and they retweet it on mine."

Guilty pleasure: "I've drunk a bottle of champagne every Friday night for maybe 20 years." Current favorites? Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle -- "the best bubble of any champagne" -- and Ruinart's blanc de blancs.

Lessons from the scrum: The All Blacks, New Zealand's rugby team, "could teach everyone about sportsmanship. You never boast. It's always about what I'm going to do next. Rugby teaches you humility, honor, respect, and yet, at the same time, it's the most physical, fiercely aggressive contact sport there is."

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/146/whos-next-geoff-vuleta.html

Swimming in Iceland

All of you probably heard about Finnish baths where you swim in ice cold water, run and jump into sauna or a hot tub.

The same practice is also a part of living in Iceland. Monocle had a great coverage of economic crisis in Iceland last year. 2 months ago they went to Iceland one more time to see how people are coping with crisis. And the answer is swimming.

Swimming in icy water during a very cold winters day, then running for 200 meters and jump into 38 degrees hot water.

This is the way of surviving, way of feeling that you are still alive in Iceland. I would love to practice that sometime too and maybe I will go and pay a visit to Iceland next winter to do so.

It will also be nice to see my friends in Iceland FA as well :) Maybe they will be joining me.

The pictures you see are from a public beach of Rejkjavik. It is called Ylströndin Nautholsvik.

New Harry Potter- The Deathly Hallows Trailer

The new trailer of Harry Potter, The Deathly Hallows is now available. I loved it. Hope you will enjoy that too. In the trailer we are able to see two confrontations of Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

We are also able to see some great sceneries of Harry Potter and co's whereabouts. There also some parts I forgot about the book. The man stopping Hogwarts Express etc.

Anyway the film will be presented in two parts. First one in November 2010, second July 2011. Looking very much forward to those.