August 14, 2006 - Joe Booth is a glutton for punishment. For one, the FIFA 07 producer follows Leeds United, the English football club currently banished to the second-tier Coca-Cola league, second behind the Premiership. Also, Booth has taken the reigns of FIFA 07 on current-generation platforms, a title that for years has played second fiddle to Konami's Winning Eleven franchise. But, with the addition of Interactive Leagues and a new ball-physics system -- and about 4,000 more official licenses than Winning Eleven -- this year's FIFA could be a legitimate contender for the football crown.
Here's what Booth has to say on the evolution of the FIFA franchise, from a new ESPN presence to the addition of French crowds
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IGN: Howdy Joe. What's your history with EA and the videogame biz?
Joe Booth: This is my first game for EA. I've actually been in the videogame industry for 20 years. I taught myself to program while skipping school and got my first job writing games when I was 15. I left school, and never looked back. My dream was always to make games and I'm still living that dream. Before joining EA, I was at Ubisoft in Paris making shooters such as Ghost Recon 2 and a new IP called Killing Day. I still feel that I'm learning my craft of how to create videogames, of how to understand how the choices I make as a designer have an emotional impact on my audience.
IGN: The first big improvement I noticed was with the sound, especially the crowds. What focus did you have in the audio department this year?
Booth: The direction I choose for FIFA 07 was to celebrate club football through the highs and lows of the glory and shame of your club. It is an emotional rollercoaster following your team in a game and throughout the season and we wanted to capture this experience in FIFA 07. I felt it was important for us to re-create the disappointment of loosing 3-0 away from home on a rainy winter Wednesday night to the glory of beating Man U at Old Trafford on a beautiful spring Saturday afternoon.
We built an engine which continuously tracks every move on the pitch and simulates the emotional state of the home or away crowd during every high and low in a match. This emotional tracking influences every layer in the audio. If the away team is getting too much possession, the home crowd becomes frustrated. If the home team is winning by 1 goal and there is only a few minutes left they will start to whistle for the referee to end the match. If the home team is 3 goals up and you pass the ball around the crowd cheers with every pass.
The idea is that we use the crowd to reinforce the emotion that we want the gamer to feel. Some of the effects are designed to act on a subconscious level such as shouts from the crowd which are very low in the mix. The commentary and close-up replays use this subtle approach. We use filters on the replays and different camera angles to help reinforce the shame / glory spectrum.
Finally, we added the concept of regionalization. So a crowd in France sounds French. Likewise, we have authentically captured the crowd experience for games in Mexico, England, Italy, Spain, and Germany. We recorded these different crowds at local matches, capturing the chants, the cheers and the shouts - it's all in there and it is an authentic experience.
IGN: The ball physics are continually improving in FIFA. What does top spin and back spin add to the game?
Booth: It's a quantum leap for us. This is the first time we've been able to really simulate and recreate the unpredictability of the game in an authentic fashion using the ball.
Before in FIFA the animation drove a lot of the outcome of how the ball would react, in time this made the game feel predictable and unrealistic. Now the outcome is driven by the spin of the ball, its power, the attributes of the player and what is going on around the player. It's this context that makes the game much more realistic and unpredictable, so after 100 hours you still feel like your playing a soccer simulation and not an arcade game.
We thought it was impossible to accurately simulate top spin and back spin in current gen because we have to simulate forward in time in order to make saves that look realistic, which takes a lot of processor power. But we gave the problem to one of our new engineers, Don Hung, and didn't tell him it was supposed to be impossible - he figured it out using complex physics simulations.
IGN: At the Studio Showcase you showed me a finesse shot move, where you can do a lot of different things with the ball. What are some of the nice moves you can do with that?
Booth: At a basic level there is a lot more you can do with the ball in FIFA 07. Just while passing, the longer you hold down the pass button, the more distant a player it will choose.
For the shooting, you need composure on the pitch and on the pad. If you have space and have control of the ball you are much more likely to get it on target. But, if you try and turn 180 degrees and shoot without taking a touch, or if you have a defender closing down on you, then you are much more likely to mess it up. Likewise on the pad, it's much more sensitive, so if you panic, and over press the pad, you will knock it into the top row of the stands, just like in real life.
We've added a new type of shooting, the finesse shot. Hold L2 (on the ps2) then press shoot to use the inside of the boot and place the shot or to curl it past the keeper. You can add a lot more power to the finesse shot, but you'll need more space and composure to pull it off.
The free kicks take advantage of the new ball physics. Once you have pressed the shoot button, you can use the L-Stick to add top spin (up) to drop the ball over the wall, back spin (down) to keep the ball in the air longer, with or without curl (left or right) to curl it into the net. You can do a low driven shot with L1, or call in a 2nd player to do lay offs, dummies, etc.
When crossing, the power bar selects how far across the goal it will kick the ball. Once the ball is in the air, pull away from goal to increase the chance of doing a spectacular volley or bicycle kick, but make sure your player has the space.
Finally, we re-worked the skill moves on the right stick. Certain moves can only be carried out with a certain skill level of player or are unique to star players. We have things like the rainbow kick (which can be chained together to do some spectacular moves past defenders and then volley the ball into the net), ball lifts, stepovers, lane change, sideways dribble, drag backs, fake stepovers, fake shots, and more.
With over 1,500 new animations in the game there is a lot of complexity and depth. As well as what I've covered here, we have reworked the physical play and collisions, the in air fight for balls, the fundamentals of player acceleration and responsiveness.
Booth: We worked with our PSP group to get the Manager Mode on to the PSP for this year in way that its 100% compatible to send a game between the PS2 and PSP at any point. So you can play 2 games or 2 seasons on the road and bring the game back to the PS2.
We added a create club feature to the game this year (which works in all offline modes.) You can create your dream team or your pub team, and set the starting budget for manager mode.
This year, the board is much more demanding, the press more critical, and the fans more emotional. Mess up too many times and no one will hire you.
Plus, we added much more realism through real money, overhauled the Visual Sim mode, and added a player growth system. There's an all new youth player system, and better financial prediction so you can see just how long you have before you go bust.
IGN: Is there any ESPN presence this year?
Booth: Yes. We worked with Soccernet.com, a subsidiary company of ESPN in Europe that focuses on soccer. They supply us our ticker feed with the latest scores, news headlines, results, and fixtures.
We implemented EA's silent sign in and online everywhere feature, so once you've been online the game will silently sign you online every time you boot up your ps2, Xbox or PC.
The ticker can even be turned on during gameplay so you can watch live scores come in while playing the game.
IGN: The big new feature is probably Interactive Leagues. What are they and how will they improve online gaming?
Booth: The Interactive Leagues recreate online interactive versions of four real world leagues -- the F.A. Premiership, Bundesliga, French League 1 and the Mexican 1st Division.
So if you are a Manchester United fan, and say Man U is playing Everton in the Premiership next Saturday, then:
# On Thursday night the fixture will open up, you'll go online and be match made against Everton fans.
# You play as many games through that fixture as you want.
# On Saturday night, the fixture will close
# The Club who got the most wins across all the games on all platforms will get the 3 points in the Interactive Premiership.
There is a top 100 players per each club per platform so you can see how you're comparing to all the other fans. There are lobby rooms set up so you can chat to the other fans to compare tactics, etc.
This is a complex feature which we want to take our time to grow with our community. We have a dedicated community person in our studio to help us learn with and from the community. This person will create weekly community pod casts that will include interviews with the top gamers talking about what's going on in each league. He will also write news stories which you can read in game.
IGN: Why didn't you include leagues like Italy's Serie A or USA's MLS in Interactive Leagues?
Booth: We really wanted to focus our energy on fewer leagues and do them really well initially. It's an exciting mode, but its complex to predict how our online community will react when we take into account their allegiances to their clubs.
We did a lot of statistical studies to simulate participation per league per territory. The issue with Spain and Italy is that there is not enough online penetration in those territories. In North America we saw that there was more support for the Mexican League than for the MLS.
IGN: A lot of players really want traditional online leagues where you can play with ten of your buddies. Is that in the works?
Booth: We get asked for this a lot. But because football is a close contact physical game it is a difficult technical challenge even just linking up two machines. We have some clever guys on our team looking into it and we will get there I'm sure. For this year I just wanted to focus on getting the peer to peer as good as possible.
IGN: FIFA has 510 teams, which is amazing. How do you get your info on all of these teams, even the crazy, small third division teams?
Booth: We have a team of football nuts all over the world who are continually updating our database of 50,000 players, 12,000 of which are in FIFA code. We have tools to monitor the integrity of the database and ensure that it makes sense to the game engines. It's incredibly complex as players are transferring right up until the end of August and they have to make sure each team is balanced.
This year we will do an online squad update at launch to catch any transfers we miss (and any last minute changes in Italy). At the end of the transfer window we will update the top leagues. All you need to do is go online and it will do the rest for you.
IGN: What do you want people to remember about FIFA 07 a few years from now?
Booth: I really think that FIFA 07 will be remembered for the tremendous advancements we made to gameplay and as the year we started Interactive Leagues. Fans of the franchise will appreciate the improvements to gameplay, and I believe that Interactive Leagues will have appeal to fans world wide. It will really unite soccer fans from around the world. This year is just the beginning of what is to come.
Here's what Booth has to say on the evolution of the FIFA franchise, from a new ESPN presence to the addition of French crowds
------
IGN: Howdy Joe. What's your history with EA and the videogame biz?
Joe Booth: This is my first game for EA. I've actually been in the videogame industry for 20 years. I taught myself to program while skipping school and got my first job writing games when I was 15. I left school, and never looked back. My dream was always to make games and I'm still living that dream. Before joining EA, I was at Ubisoft in Paris making shooters such as Ghost Recon 2 and a new IP called Killing Day. I still feel that I'm learning my craft of how to create videogames, of how to understand how the choices I make as a designer have an emotional impact on my audience.
IGN: The first big improvement I noticed was with the sound, especially the crowds. What focus did you have in the audio department this year?
Booth: The direction I choose for FIFA 07 was to celebrate club football through the highs and lows of the glory and shame of your club. It is an emotional rollercoaster following your team in a game and throughout the season and we wanted to capture this experience in FIFA 07. I felt it was important for us to re-create the disappointment of loosing 3-0 away from home on a rainy winter Wednesday night to the glory of beating Man U at Old Trafford on a beautiful spring Saturday afternoon.
We built an engine which continuously tracks every move on the pitch and simulates the emotional state of the home or away crowd during every high and low in a match. This emotional tracking influences every layer in the audio. If the away team is getting too much possession, the home crowd becomes frustrated. If the home team is winning by 1 goal and there is only a few minutes left they will start to whistle for the referee to end the match. If the home team is 3 goals up and you pass the ball around the crowd cheers with every pass.
The idea is that we use the crowd to reinforce the emotion that we want the gamer to feel. Some of the effects are designed to act on a subconscious level such as shouts from the crowd which are very low in the mix. The commentary and close-up replays use this subtle approach. We use filters on the replays and different camera angles to help reinforce the shame / glory spectrum.
Finally, we added the concept of regionalization. So a crowd in France sounds French. Likewise, we have authentically captured the crowd experience for games in Mexico, England, Italy, Spain, and Germany. We recorded these different crowds at local matches, capturing the chants, the cheers and the shouts - it's all in there and it is an authentic experience.
IGN: The ball physics are continually improving in FIFA. What does top spin and back spin add to the game?
Booth: It's a quantum leap for us. This is the first time we've been able to really simulate and recreate the unpredictability of the game in an authentic fashion using the ball.
Before in FIFA the animation drove a lot of the outcome of how the ball would react, in time this made the game feel predictable and unrealistic. Now the outcome is driven by the spin of the ball, its power, the attributes of the player and what is going on around the player. It's this context that makes the game much more realistic and unpredictable, so after 100 hours you still feel like your playing a soccer simulation and not an arcade game.
We thought it was impossible to accurately simulate top spin and back spin in current gen because we have to simulate forward in time in order to make saves that look realistic, which takes a lot of processor power. But we gave the problem to one of our new engineers, Don Hung, and didn't tell him it was supposed to be impossible - he figured it out using complex physics simulations.
IGN: At the Studio Showcase you showed me a finesse shot move, where you can do a lot of different things with the ball. What are some of the nice moves you can do with that?
Booth: At a basic level there is a lot more you can do with the ball in FIFA 07. Just while passing, the longer you hold down the pass button, the more distant a player it will choose.
For the shooting, you need composure on the pitch and on the pad. If you have space and have control of the ball you are much more likely to get it on target. But, if you try and turn 180 degrees and shoot without taking a touch, or if you have a defender closing down on you, then you are much more likely to mess it up. Likewise on the pad, it's much more sensitive, so if you panic, and over press the pad, you will knock it into the top row of the stands, just like in real life.
We've added a new type of shooting, the finesse shot. Hold L2 (on the ps2) then press shoot to use the inside of the boot and place the shot or to curl it past the keeper. You can add a lot more power to the finesse shot, but you'll need more space and composure to pull it off.
The free kicks take advantage of the new ball physics. Once you have pressed the shoot button, you can use the L-Stick to add top spin (up) to drop the ball over the wall, back spin (down) to keep the ball in the air longer, with or without curl (left or right) to curl it into the net. You can do a low driven shot with L1, or call in a 2nd player to do lay offs, dummies, etc.
When crossing, the power bar selects how far across the goal it will kick the ball. Once the ball is in the air, pull away from goal to increase the chance of doing a spectacular volley or bicycle kick, but make sure your player has the space.
Finally, we re-worked the skill moves on the right stick. Certain moves can only be carried out with a certain skill level of player or are unique to star players. We have things like the rainbow kick (which can be chained together to do some spectacular moves past defenders and then volley the ball into the net), ball lifts, stepovers, lane change, sideways dribble, drag backs, fake stepovers, fake shots, and more.
With over 1,500 new animations in the game there is a lot of complexity and depth. As well as what I've covered here, we have reworked the physical play and collisions, the in air fight for balls, the fundamentals of player acceleration and responsiveness.
Booth: We worked with our PSP group to get the Manager Mode on to the PSP for this year in way that its 100% compatible to send a game between the PS2 and PSP at any point. So you can play 2 games or 2 seasons on the road and bring the game back to the PS2.
We added a create club feature to the game this year (which works in all offline modes.) You can create your dream team or your pub team, and set the starting budget for manager mode.
This year, the board is much more demanding, the press more critical, and the fans more emotional. Mess up too many times and no one will hire you.
Plus, we added much more realism through real money, overhauled the Visual Sim mode, and added a player growth system. There's an all new youth player system, and better financial prediction so you can see just how long you have before you go bust.
IGN: Is there any ESPN presence this year?
Booth: Yes. We worked with Soccernet.com, a subsidiary company of ESPN in Europe that focuses on soccer. They supply us our ticker feed with the latest scores, news headlines, results, and fixtures.
We implemented EA's silent sign in and online everywhere feature, so once you've been online the game will silently sign you online every time you boot up your ps2, Xbox or PC.
The ticker can even be turned on during gameplay so you can watch live scores come in while playing the game.
IGN: The big new feature is probably Interactive Leagues. What are they and how will they improve online gaming?
Booth: The Interactive Leagues recreate online interactive versions of four real world leagues -- the F.A. Premiership, Bundesliga, French League 1 and the Mexican 1st Division.
So if you are a Manchester United fan, and say Man U is playing Everton in the Premiership next Saturday, then:
# On Thursday night the fixture will open up, you'll go online and be match made against Everton fans.
# You play as many games through that fixture as you want.
# On Saturday night, the fixture will close
# The Club who got the most wins across all the games on all platforms will get the 3 points in the Interactive Premiership.
There is a top 100 players per each club per platform so you can see how you're comparing to all the other fans. There are lobby rooms set up so you can chat to the other fans to compare tactics, etc.
This is a complex feature which we want to take our time to grow with our community. We have a dedicated community person in our studio to help us learn with and from the community. This person will create weekly community pod casts that will include interviews with the top gamers talking about what's going on in each league. He will also write news stories which you can read in game.
IGN: Why didn't you include leagues like Italy's Serie A or USA's MLS in Interactive Leagues?
Booth: We really wanted to focus our energy on fewer leagues and do them really well initially. It's an exciting mode, but its complex to predict how our online community will react when we take into account their allegiances to their clubs.
We did a lot of statistical studies to simulate participation per league per territory. The issue with Spain and Italy is that there is not enough online penetration in those territories. In North America we saw that there was more support for the Mexican League than for the MLS.
IGN: A lot of players really want traditional online leagues where you can play with ten of your buddies. Is that in the works?
Booth: We get asked for this a lot. But because football is a close contact physical game it is a difficult technical challenge even just linking up two machines. We have some clever guys on our team looking into it and we will get there I'm sure. For this year I just wanted to focus on getting the peer to peer as good as possible.
IGN: FIFA has 510 teams, which is amazing. How do you get your info on all of these teams, even the crazy, small third division teams?
Booth: We have a team of football nuts all over the world who are continually updating our database of 50,000 players, 12,000 of which are in FIFA code. We have tools to monitor the integrity of the database and ensure that it makes sense to the game engines. It's incredibly complex as players are transferring right up until the end of August and they have to make sure each team is balanced.
This year we will do an online squad update at launch to catch any transfers we miss (and any last minute changes in Italy). At the end of the transfer window we will update the top leagues. All you need to do is go online and it will do the rest for you.
IGN: What do you want people to remember about FIFA 07 a few years from now?
Booth: I really think that FIFA 07 will be remembered for the tremendous advancements we made to gameplay and as the year we started Interactive Leagues. Fans of the franchise will appreciate the improvements to gameplay, and I believe that Interactive Leagues will have appeal to fans world wide. It will really unite soccer fans from around the world. This year is just the beginning of what is to come.
