One of the most successful productions of the American video game company Electronic Arts (EA), FIFA adds a new one every year to its series that has been going on since 1993. Of course, these additions are reflected in team licenses, tournament licenses and player ratings, along with the improvement of the gameplay features of the game.
These football player ratings determined by FIFA can be criticized from time to time by the fans, even by the players themselves. Alright. How does FIFA determine the player ratings, and what criteria does it look at? Let’s have a look together…
EA Sports with a large data collection team
FIFA’s production company, EA Sports, has a large data collection and licensing team. There are 25 EA employees in this team. At the same time, more than 400 people contribute to this formation with their external work. The team has only one job, and that is to keep all player data up to date. In other words, the process of calculating player ratings starts with the work of this team.
Scout team, following players match by match
This team we’re talking about works with a scout group of thousands of people. This scout army of volunteers participates in real matches just like in football clubs, watches match tapes and follows football players closely. Even some people who are football coaches by profession are among these volunteer scouts.
It is easy to follow the performances of players like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Kevin de Bruyne playing in top leagues and clubs, but the scout team plays a big role in following the players in the 2nd or 3rd league. The important criteria scouts look at when creating FIFA player ratings are as follows:
- Physical condition
- Speed
- Shooting
- Passing
- Defense
- Dribbling
After the investigations on these features, the scout team shares the reports they have created in the light of the data they have prepared with EA Sports. Examining this data, the EA Sports team makes the final decision about the rating of the player.
To sum up, how does FIFA determine player ratings?
In a nutshell, EA Sports decides player ratings based on analysis submitted by real scouts. If a football player is out of shape during the season in real life and is not as fast as before, his rating naturally decreases in FIFA’s new season game. On the contrary, a young football player who has just shined and started to take time in his team has a higher rating.
EA Sports doesn’t like to use statistics instead of observation
So why? Doesn’t FIFA only calculate ratings based on players’ statistics at the end of the season? Michael Mueller-Moehring, head of the entire analysis team mentioned above, explains the reason for this as follows:
“We cannot trust statistics 100 percent because they often do not take special conditions into account. Even if it offers comprehensive data, it cannot show us everything. For example, if the system of the team in which a player plays is based on possession of the ball, he will have made more passes than the players of the other team. But that doesn’t mean you’re a good setter.”
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