FIFA 18: If EA Sports think India is a big market, they need to re-work on Indian national team in the game

India has one of the world’s fastest growing gaming communities. With multiple platforms like the Indian Gaming League and worldwide giant Electronic Sports League making their foray into the country, E-Sports is only set to grow in the country.

World gaming giant, EA first took note of the country’s growing passion for gaming and sports when they introduced the Indian national football team on their annual flagship football release, FIFA 13 for its huge Indian customer base.

What makes the FIFA series so successful is its accurate player likeness and realistic gameplay. While the latter is obviously uniform with all teams in the game, the player likenesses show considerable differences when it comes to teams like India.

It seems that EA don’t really concentrate on producing accurate copies of player features from lesser teams, maybe on the basis that nobody really plays with such teams.

Domestic gamers looking to play with the Indian team can complain of step-motherly treatment from EA as Indian stars like Sunil Chhetri and Eugeneson Lyngdoh’s FIFA 17 characters look nothing like their real-life counterparts.

While Subrata Paul is has been made to look like a creature out of a horror flick

With FIFA 17, EA have managed to produce inch-perfect lookalikes for the likes of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Anthony Martial et al but the same is missing for their Indian counterparts. The technology is available but EA don’t seem to be using it for Indian footballers who are not the most popular choices in the first place.

Shortly after the release of FIFA 17, EA were flooded by complaints from fans against the poor facial similarities in the game. To remedy this, EA had also released a FIFA 17 facial update pack where the likes of Liverpool Philippe Coutinho and Atletico Madrid’s Yannick Ferreira Carasco had their faces updated to better resemble their real life counterparts.

But the Indians were left out of this exercise too.

The decision makers at EA need to realise that India is a footballing nation in its infancy and is developing a large passionate following for the sport and the national team. Sunil Chhetri and co are widely followed in the country and FIFA fans look forward to playing with their home team while playing the game.

Not having accurate player likenesses for the Indian squad is disappointing to a huge FIFA playing community in the country, which EA tried to capitalise on when they first introduced the Indian team in FIFA 13 despite its lowly rank in the world standings.

EA need to get their act together for the upcoming FIFA 18 release and capitalise on the growing football gaming community in India by at least providing the Indian team with accurate facial features of players.