Gordon Bellamy talks about how Madden NFL inspired FIFA/EA Sports FC

Today, EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) is one of the biggest video game series in the world. Every year we can expect new chapters that sell tens of millions of copies but it wasn't always EA's global behemoth. Back when sports games were still developing into how we perceive them today, one of the big innovations came to Madden NFL first and saw how the series introduced full team action, meaning instead of a smaller-scale match, it became 11-on-11 gameplay.

Speaking about this change and how it creeped into the FIFA/EA Sports FC we know today, Gordon Bellamy, who is best known for his time working on EA Sports games, recently spoke with Gamereactor at San Diego Comic Con Malaga, where he explained the following.

"Yeah, well, it's funny, like having Madden as a license sort of implied that depth. So one of the biggest things with Madden originally was that [John Madden] demanded the game be 11-on-11. So before that, most football games weren't. It looked like football, but it was really like maybe 5-on-5 or 7-on-7, but he was like, it's got to look like football. And that, as a designer, sort of begs the question, it sort of changes your values a little bit about what you're trying to bring as fun, right? What is fun? And there's a difference between I want to enjoy football now for a minute or two versus... Like if you love soccer, sorry, football, sorry, here, you love football. So the team plays on Saturday or maybe plays Saturday or Wednesday. But if you want to enjoy it on Tuesday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, you actually want a very rich experience like football, right? And so you have to design a piece of entertainment, which is like that, right? Which is different than I just want like a taste of it."

Bellamy then went on to discuss how he was involved in the big innovative change to the FIFA series and how this laid the foundation for the game we know today.

"I was a player on the Spanish team in the original FIFA, because I was a tester at EA at the time. So I was there when the first build of this game, right, which was going to change everything. And what FIFA, I mean, as we all know now, or FC 25, this was a time where people were trying to reconcile super fun, fast arcade action with like simulation, okay? And people were trying to make this choice. Are we going to be more realistic? Is it going to be more like it looks on TV? Or is this going to be a fun, fast game? And FIFA nailed it. Like FIFA was a game where you didn't have to choose. It was spectacularly like watching soccer, but also arcade fun."

You can see the full subtitled interview with Bellamy below and you can even head over here to hear his thoughts on how important it is for video games to continue to champion inclusivity.