Swedish start-up takes the unlicensed route for potential FIFA rival
Swedish video game start-up GOALSraised $15 million to create a multiplayer soccer game where users can own players as NFTs.
While many details about the game are still being kept under wraps, the company has made it clear that it does NOT plan to license real gamers and is positioning it as an alternative to EA’s highly acclaimed game. Fifa game franchise.
GOALS co-founder and CEO Andreas Thorstensson said of FIFA: “You have a huge incumbent in a monopoly position. They do not innovate in terms of gameplay. They focus on revenue. This is where a startup has the chance to beat them. But we want to do things a little differently.
Thorstensson went on to mention that the company is working on a rough internal version of the game and it will be ready this summer, while the finished game should be ready in two to three years.
North area and Cherry Ventures led the round alongside Moonfire Ventures and Banana capital. A handful of other high-profile investors also participated, including Axie Infinity co-founder and COO Aleksander Larsen, FC Barcelona centre-back Gerard Pique and Sorare co-founder Nicolas Julia.
EA’s FIFA dominated the console and PC sports genre for decades, with the franchise obsession with realism being an important part of this success. A network of data reviewers ensures that each player’s statistics are up to date, for example.
Rewrite the beautiful game
GOALS will take a different approach. Not only will they not license players (with all the costs that entails), but they will also abandon realism on the pitch. According to Thorstensson, “GOALS has a more arcade approach” and will sacrifice the “simulation” side of FIFA, he says.
It’s a bold move, perhaps driven by financial necessity rather than desire, but it will at least produce a very different game of football from the market leader. And while FIFA and GOALS will allow players to earn and buy in-game assets, GOALS plans to give players the option to cash in their loot for real money, which you can’t do on FIFA. .
GOALS players can buy assets from other players on the GOALS open market or any supported third-party market. The company also hopes that its gaming community will be involved in the development of the game from the start. He currently has a group of 8,000 fans on Discord and aims to give them early access to betas of the game and gather feedback.
FIFA Overhaul on Maps
It should be noted that FIFA itself is behind schedule on an overhaul, which is even more likely to happen because – after FIFA 23 – the naming agreement between FIFA and EA Sports expires (in December 2022) and Andrew Wilson, CEO of EA, has confirmed that there will be no new contract.
So far all we’ve seen from GOALS is a slick trailer which spells out the GOALS difference but reveals little about what the gameplay will actually look like. Meanwhile, the action on the pitch is heating up elsewhere with Konami’s Electronic Football set to relaunch on April 14and as well as the promising Strikerz Inc. UFL.
