he FIFA franchise has successfully faced off against a wide variety of adversaries since its resurgence a decade ago: poor old Pro Evolution Soccer; Proper Football Men such as Adrian Clarke; and even the UK Gambling Commission. And yet there are signs in this latest iteration that EA Sports have been spooked by the emergence of their unlikeliest noisy neighbour yet: Fortnite.
Not content with hoovering up every last penny of its players’ pocket money, FIFA now wants to commandeer every second of their free time too. Its two dominant modes - returning loot box-infested card trading behemoth FIFA Ultimate Team (or FUT for short), and slick new street-smart addition Volta - have been precision tooled to do to the attention economy what Manchester City’s forward line does to Premier League defences, or its accountants do to Financial Fair Play.