Small details that make a huge difference

I am a big football (soccer) fan and I'm also into video games. You can picture what the combination of both actually means.

EA Sports' FIFA 12

For a long time I have been playing RTS games, mostly Starcraft to be quite honest. However just recently last year I decided to pick up a football (soccer) simulator, as some of my friends were into it to. I bought myself FIFA 12, one of the many signature games from Electronic Arts. The FIFA franchise is a collection of great games, ever since they began producing them in the 90s. Nowadays they are more then just a simple simulator where you can play Barcelona vs Real Madrid as long as you want to. The online platform that is built to support them is huge... I mean ENORMOUS. You can play with a team, you can play as part of a team, you can buy and sell real life players to build your own team... the spectrum covered is never ending.

Konami's PES

FIFA's biggest rival and competitor is a game called "Pro Evolution Soccer" or simply PES, which is developed by one of the greatest video game companies of all time: Konami, the creators of classics like Castlevania and Super C. Sports hasn't really been Konami's strength through their history, but make no mistake; PES is a great game and a very realistic simulator. I got a copy myself after a played it with a friend, and I was clearly convinced that the game was worth owning. However when comparing this year's editions, FIFA12 against PES 12, reviewers agree how close good both games are, but in the end there seems to be a slight preference towards FIFA 12. Does it have better graphics? Is the simulation better? Is the gameplay faster? Not exactly.

Comparison between
PES and FIFA

The biggest selling point that FIFA 12 has is not exactly a direct characteristic that can be traced to the root of the game. It is something that I would refer to as an additional feature: the licenses of the teams and players names. You see, not all teams and players in PES feature their actual real name; the English Premier League has only two teams, with all the rest being named ... whatever the programmers came up with. So the frequent complaint that comes from anti-PES gamers is that they don't like to use a team called North London, instead of the real Arsenal; or Red Bunch, instead of Manchester United. Now you may ask, how significant is this? Very.

A snapshot of a player carrying
a laser rail gun in Quake 

A few years ago I was having drinks with my video gamer friends and the conversation topic was about the emergence of shooter games, like Quake and Counter Strike, Call of Duty. When questioned about Quake's difficulty and skill needed to be good at it, one of my friends, who at the time was a hardcore Counter Strike gamer, said that he wouldn't ever play Quake and the reason that he gave was that Quake has "fake weapons", whereas Counter Strike you are able to use "real weapons." I thought about it and I found the affirmation a bit ironic. Really?? Fake vs Real weapons ?? In a video game??

The thing is that when it comes to numbers, the amount of gamers playing Counter Strike or Call of Duty is way overwhelming than those who play Quake. You see, CS or COD look "realistic." Of course you are not actually using a real AK47 rifle, but it transmits the sensation as if you were. FIFA 12 does the same thing.

Call of Duty means business

In FIFA 12 a player has ALL teams with ALL the players' real names available at ALL times. Not only that, FIFA 12 has a feature called "live season" that automatically updates your squad to reflect real life conditions. So if a player is injured in real life, he will be injured in your FIFA 12. If a player is in the zone and scoring goals like crazy, he will have a higher skill in your FIFA 12.

I believe this small detail is the reason why FIFA 12 has been able to hold an advantage over PES 12, despite PES being a better game simulator of the actual game per se. So why doesn't Konami buy the licenses? Have they actually studied what would happen to their revenue if they were to spend the cash in this venture? Have they acknowledged that they have the power to become bigger and larger than FIFA12? Who knows....

Counter Strike and COD are games that are easy to play and offer the gamer a sensation of realism that their competitors don't. That's whty they have been so popular.

The bottom line is that I have learned that regardless of what your company does and what the nature of your product or service is, it is VERY important to pay attention to the small details. They can make a huge difference on the demand of your product and therefore your revenue. Even if it costs you a bit of money and you see it as an expense, it may in fact be an investment that may pay off if you are patient enough.