EA Sports Football Club Adds Social Experience To FIFA 12

Electronic Arts announced EA Sports Football Club, a new and free service that serves as "the heartbeat" of FIFA Soccer 12, tracking and sharing players' status, progression, and more. Football Club is meant to enable players to "support their favorite club in new ways connected to real-world events, and connect and compete with friends, rivals and millions of other players around the world." The service allows users to earn experience points, level up, and build their status as they progress through the soccer game. Users can track their friends, challenges, and status at a special site, and share accomplishments on social networks like Facebook. With the "Support Your Club" feature, gamers can represent their favorite club and compete against rival clubs in FIFA 12. They can earn club points, and improve the club's standing in the League tables. Furthermore, EA plans to make available "real-word storylines" that will have players reliving real-world soccer events through challenges. The publisher believes content updates like this this will make FIFA 12 feel fresh and new. Football Club will launch this fall with FIFA 12 on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC -- the game wil release for Wii, PS2, 3DS, PSP, and iOS devices, too, but those editions will not include support for the new community features. "The millions of fans playing FIFA online have shown us there is a constant appetite for a deep connected experience, driven by a love of the sport," says Matt Bilbey, vice president and general manager of Soccer for the FIFA Soccer franchise. He adds, "EA Sports Football Club is a new social experience that brings the world's soccer fans together, engaging and entertaining them in new ways that have never been done before in a sports game."