Is playing FIFA bad for your health?

It may be one of the biggest selling video game franchises in history but all is not well in the world of FIFA. Publishers Electronic Arts appear to have spent much of the Black Friday weekend firefighting rather than pushing deals, discounts and upgrades for their enviable portfolio of games. In fact, it’s reasonable to say the company are currently at war with thousands of players, who have backed the #FixFIFA campaign amid claims that the most recent version is, at best, broken and, at worst, bad for your health.

Having already been forced to cancel in-game purchases for Star Wars Battlefront 2, the latest backlash was launched across social media to coincide with the annual global shopping bonanza. Calling for major changes in the gameplay, fixes to multiple glitches and a spending freeze from players on EA’s lucrative Ultimate Team mode, a Change.org petition has now attracted almost 40,000 signatures. Notably, it also makes a direct reference to FUT Champions Weekend League, which demands an enormous commitment from those who participate.

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The petition states that the competition’s format, which involves playing 40 games across a weekend, taking at least 12 hours, “is both mentally and physically unhealthy.” This allegation is reinforced by a recent investigation into the game mode, which claims it could be having serious repercussions on the mental health of the most dedicated players, which include young children and working parents. “For an army of FIFA players, the weekend was spent hammering game after game after game for hours on end. And this is no relaxing weekend game session, either. This is high stress, high stakes FIFA. This is the Weekend League,” writes Eurogamer.net.

Surveying the comments on the article, the level of challenge involved in the competition becomes clear. ProTw33ks commented: “These games are designed in tandem with psychologists, they are designed with as many hooks as possible and addiction in modern games with gambling-lite features is a very real thing. Playing are addicted. Try telling someone that is addicted to something that they’re stupid for not being able to stop. FIFA is putting those with addictive personality traits in situations that could be potentially dangerous and unhealthy.”

Meanwhile, Fourwisemen cited EA’s “greed” as the motivation for FUT Champions Weekend. “What worries me about these game structure developments is the developers express intention to promote an unhealthy existence. We’ve all read stories of ‘super dedicated’ online gamers who have died sat in their gaming chairs, that any developer (EA or anyone else) would expressly increase these risks is staggering. Can you imagine what would happen if a gamer did actually have a serious health issue brought on by this encouraged behaviour? The media storm would be huge, particularly if it was a younger person,” he wrote.

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The backlash against EA is not solely reserved for part-time, aspirational players but those who have actually made it to the very top of the game. Samer “Samer96” Elbadar, a professional FIFA player from Sydney, Australia, recently revealed plans to resign from his pro team FUTWIZ and quit completely. Announcing his decision, Elbadar admitted it “did take over my life and really started to affect my personal life (work, study and relationship) due to the amount of time you’d have to play to try to be one of the best.”

He also took aim at the game’s most contentious mode: “I believe the current structure of FUT Champs is doomed for failure in the long term as more and more casuals as well as professionals will eventually get completely fed up with the weekly games which feels a lot more like a chore now, especially with the broken gameplay and not to mention the horrendous server issues. Many people who have played almost every weekend in 17 have already called it quits in 18 because they’ve realised during the few weeks/months downtime before the release of 18, really how much it takes away from their weekend and life in general, I know I have.”

Although EA make regular changes, updates and improvements to FIFA and their other games in the form of online patches, there has been no official comment about the current situation and the very real concerns of players and commentators alike. However, it’s abundantly clear they don’t have to go very far to find out what the gaming world currently thinks of them and their flagship title.