FIFA and Roblox have joined forces in a new deal. This new partnership presents an exciting new development in the online world for football fans both young and old. While traditionally, Roblox audiences skew towards the under-18 set, this may also stretch the platform’s demographics further. After all, Animal Crossing grew exponentially in popularity among adults. It’s no surprise that many football fans who love the sport equally revel in gaming. This includes all types of games, including no-deposit slots at online casinos.
FIFA x Roblox, a new take on the FIFA franchise
This new Roblox partnership might not come as a surprise to those who have been closely watching FIFA’s video game moves over the past year. In earlier 2022, FIFA and EA Sports announced that their historic and wildly successful partner relationship would be coming to an end. This partnership saw the release of some of the world’s most popular games ever. The split means it’s time for FIFA to make some bold new moves in gaming. While EA moves on with EA Sports FC, FIFA needs a different approach. The simplicity of Roblox, and the fact that much of the game is user-generated world-building means that FIFA will be able to crowd-source much of their ideas, which not only gives an amazing opportunity but allows FIFA to cut costs on video game development.
Moving Forward with Roblox
Roblox launched 16 years ago on PC and the platform finally gained traction around 10 years later. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength and truly hit the mainstream in 2020 thanks to the power of Covid lockdowns. Compared often to Minecraft, the game is limited in scope only really by players’ imaginations, as users create their own worlds, games, stories, and more. The infinite possibilities allowed by the game and the young audience mean that it has been used widely in school settings as a tool to teach kids how to code. Other notables for Roblox include their series of concerts with LilNas X, Zara Larsson, and more.
User growth for Roblox is accelerating, as is the amount that creators on the platform are making. On their mobile version, lifetime user spending crossed $1.5B in 2020. Microtransactions are accepted in these types of environments. In Xbox and PlayStation, where FIFA has typically had an audience with their EA Sports cobranded titles, microtransactions are widely derided, leading to user protestations.
The video game market has changed significantly since the EA Sports partnership was inked, and now this partnership with Roblox represents a move to a more mature market strategy for gaming. Will it be the right one to take?
A glance towards the future
The first move in this new relationship is the release of FIFA World, a free-release title available globally on the platform. Here, fans will be able to join social spaces, play skill-based games, and participate in collection challenges for exclusive items. There will be plenty of videos and augmented video content, in-game events that sync up to various FIFA events in real life. This includes plenty of opportunities for players to interact with fans in real-time, albeit virtually.
The newly released FIFA World may just be the first step in growing this space. The beauty of Roblox and other similar metaverse platforms and experiences is that they can grow and adapt organically. Both players, investors, and game developers have a chance to shape the world and experiences within it. It’s more of a collaborative relationship between everyone, rather than users being served fixed content, with only backchannels like complaint forms and Twitter to use when they want to get involved in storylines and experiences.
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