Towards a Monopoly: Examining FIFA's Dominance in Simulated Football

FIFA's near-dominance of simulated football is examined in this analysis, which asks why Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) lost the market to Electronic Arts' FIFA despite broadly comparable critical reviews. The central argument is that PES's decline stems from financial and licensing factors rather than inferior gameplay. Sales figures illustrate the divergence starkly: FIFA 17 sold 17.02 million copies in 2016, while PES reached only 1.26 million, and later reports suggest FIFA 19 outsold PES 2019 by roughly 22 to 1. The work situates these disparities within a broader question about how commercial structures shape a genre's health.

The analysis proceeds through three dimensions. First, FIFA's streaming ecosystem has matured into review, entertainment, and purpose-specific content, with leading creators functioning as influential "game influencers" whose audiences rival the player bases of competing titles. Their commentary frequently criticizes glitches, inconsistent mechanics, and revenue-driven design. Second, Ultimate Team (FUT) has become the franchise's centerpiece, holding a 64 percent player share in 2014 and growing 15 percent year-on-year in matches between 2018 and 2019, supported by a year-round, transaction-based live-service model. Third, exclusive licensing deals and partnerships with favored leagues and clubs have reinforced FIFA's position.

The study scopes its evidence to the mid-2010s through 2019, drawing on industry sales data, corporate disclosures such as EA's claim of 45 million unique FIFA 18 and FIFA 19 players in fiscal 2019, and academic literature on esports and loot boxes. Its conclusion is that FIFA's business strategy, rather than gameplay quality, has contracted the genre, with PES's market share falling to roughly 5 percent and the overall market shrinking from about 20 million sales in 2015 to around 13 million players in 2018.