In a UK press event where EA Sports officially unveiled FIFA 10, Peter Moore, the company's president, addressed the challenges they face with convincing gamers to buy annual versions of EA Sports titles.
"We've got to give everybody a reason to buy the new game," he said. "That's the challenge we face every year as a label with our portfolio, our franchises - I've absolutely got to make you buy them every single year."
Peter Moore then expressed his confidence that "the FIFA team is very good at doing that - they're very self-deprecating in that while it's an award-winning game, they're never satisfied. The moment you're satisfied, that's then the trouble starts. "
Moore was then asked if it is better for consumers if new versions of FIFA would be released as annual patches to existing games, but he answered that this isn't entirely true. For example, if I adopted that model and if I didn't buy FIFA 09, I'd have to go out and buy it [as a starting point],"
he explained. "And retail would have to keep it stocked for a long time because how could I get my update for FIFA 10? It's not as easy as it sounds, and the downloads are not patches - these things are full gigabytes, with the amount of new data we put into games... 'Patch' is an interesting word, these are not patches."
