Then there’s another layer which is hearing news about what your friends are up to, so we’ll be surfacing information about levelling up and who’s winning and losing where. If you go onto our website you’ll also be able to see a feed of all your friends there and push it onto Facebook, if that’s what you’re into.
We also have Support Your Club, which allows you to pledge allegiance to a football club, and from that point onwards everything that you do counts towards your profile and the profile of your club.
So, a Leicester City fan will be able to accumulate points over each week for that club. At the end of the week, the average XP earned by all of the Leicester City fans will determine whether or not Leicester City are in first, second or twentieth position in the league tables. We’ll promote and relegate clubs based on the skill and dedication of their fans.
How are we going to do that for a club like Manchester United? Well, we tot up the average skill and dedication of Man United fans rather than the specific amount of points in total, so whilst there will be more Man U fans than Leicester City fans, their fans may not be as good as the Leicester City fans.
They may not have earned as much XP on average that week, in which case... slowly but surely Leicester City will overtake Manchester United and dominate the Premier League - as is their natural right (smiles).
SPOnG: The EA Sports Football Club reminds me a lot of the many other services that developers are introducing - the Rockstar Pass, Activision’s own Call of Duty Elite... Do you think this explosion of developer services is, in general, a good thing? Could it lead to fragmentation of services?
David Rutter: I think if you’re into that kind of thing, you’re into that kind of thing - and if you’re not, you’re not. Ultimately, this is not going to change the way you play
FIFA. This is a philosophy. A kind of, if you like, invisible contributing layer that you will do. So if you’re not interested in levelling up, XP or comparing yourself against your friends then you just don’t. If you’re not interested in the Support Your Club feature, then it doesn’t matter. It will be in the menus, you will see it.
I hope people will enjoy because I’ve sweated blood on this thing, but there are additional things as well. The scenarios and challenges that we take from the real world of football and deliver to people - absolutely it’s part of the live services that’s kicking off this year with
FIFA 12, at no additional cost. And I think what we’re trying to do is make sure that throughout the year there’s some cool, compelling stuff for our fans to do that’s in addition to their normal game.
SPOnG: I’m curious how you’re able to provide all of this additional content to consumers for no additional charge, when Activision is offering something similar with Call of Duty Elite but throwing in a subscription fee?
David Rutter: Well, it’s our first year, and ultimately what we’ve decided is that the stuff that we’re trying to do this year was cool and we wanted people to get involved and to have fun doing it. We toyed with the idea of it costing money, but after some long discussions about it, it was decided that for this year, it will be at no additional cost, so...
SPOnG: Will there be a cost in the future?
David Rutter: I don’t know what the future holds. I’m just fully invested, heart and soul, in releasing
FIFA 12 at the moment. Once I can actually take a gulp of air above the surface of that, I’ll be able to have a think about it. But we’re not charging for it this year.
SPOnG: Thank you very much for your time!
David Rutter: No worries. Thank you!
