South Africa is beaming with pride as we host Africa’s first World Cup. Gamers have a lot to be proud of too – just take a look at some of these football video gaming records. Thanks to Guinness for keeping track of all our favourite gaming records.
The record setting gamers
– On 11 June 2010, the opening match of the Football World Cup took place. As fans gathered in Trafalgar Square in London, England, 82 gamers took part in a match of their own. Playing the EA Sports 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa game, the gamers attempted to set a record for the most players to compete in a football video game. The group was divided along the lines of USA and England supporters. The match was closely contested but ultimately resulted in a 2-2 draw – a fair result for the 82 individuals now sharing the record.
– On 27 January 2010, ten dedicated gamers set out to play FIFA 10 for 24 hours nonstop, and set a new record in the process. Whilst only eight managed to pull the full 24 hours, it was enough to secure the record. More impressive was the location in which this all took place – the insanely busy Victoria Train Station in London. The gamers had to contend with the rush hour commutes, as well as freezing temperatures at night.
– The only football video game to appear on the 2010 Guinness Top 50 Video Game Series list is Pro Evolution Soccer, coming in at number 50. To obtain the list, Guinness looked to gamers, hosting a poll on their website between January and August 2009.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
– The best-selling soccer franchise is FIFA (published by EA, since 1993 to present). The franchise has shifted over 65 million copies since it was launched in 1993 making it the most successful football game franchise of all time. Following in second place is Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer, which has shipped 48 million copies – a particularly impressive figure since it only debuted in 2001, eight years after FIFA.
– The largest multiplayer sports game is FIFA 09, which allows up to 20 gamers to play a match together. In online 10-versus-10 matches, each player assumes one of the 10 outfield positions on his team and plays there for the duration of the game. The only player not available is the goalkeeper.
EA’s FIFA 09
– The fastest-selling title in the FIFA Series was FIFA 09, which sold 1.2 million copies in the game’s first week of release in October 2008.
– The first videogame to be licensed by a football club for recruiting purposes was Football Manager 2009, published by SEGA. In November 2008, the English Premier League’s Everton Football Club signed a deal with game developer Sports Interactive to make use of the Football Manager 2009 database. Everton wanted to use the database to help with the scouting of new players, making the game the first to be officially used by a major soccer club for recruiting purposes.
Football Manager 2009
– The record for the most real-life players to appear in a sports game belongs to Football Manager 2009. When Sports Interactive and SEGA released Football Manager 2009 in November 2008, it featured over 5 000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and at least 370 000 players and staff from around the world. So comprehensive is the Football Manager database that Sports Interactive believes it has accurately predicted the rise of several world soccer stars, including Argentinean wonder-kid Lionel Messi, who was a top-scorer during the 2008/2009 UEFA Champions League, playing for Barcelona.
– The longest-running football series is Championship Manager, published by Eidos since 1992 to present. The management-focused football game, Championship Manager, has enjoyed an unbroken run of annual updates since its first release on September 1, 1992, a year before EA launched the FIFA series. Other rivals to the longest running soccer series crown include Sensible Software’s Sensible Soccer, a classic that was first released in 1992 but hasn’t seen an update since 2007.
– The first football game to use the “stadium” view perspective was NASL Soccer. Published by Mattel Electronics in 1982, NASL Soccer arrived on the Atari 2600 console. This viewpoint has since become the default perspective for many of the leading action-focused soccer games, including the two genre-defining series FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer.
NASL Soccer
Related Articles: Football Game History
Football gaming records << Discuss in the forum
Loading ...
