What makes football video games so much more successful than cricket video games?

If you’re a sports fan with access to a PC or a gaming console, chances are you’ve played a sports video game before. After all, it’s one of the best ways to pass the time if you’re not watching or playing your favourite sport.

As a cricket fan, though, our favoured sport is somewhat underwhelming on the gaming scene. Put up against a sports gaming giant like football, and the differences between the two are glaring and obvious.

In the real world, cricket is the second most popular sport globally with football in first position. In the gaming community however, cricket slips all the way down to near the bottom of the ladder, while football maintains it’s top dog ranking.

So, with this in mind, what is it exactly that football is doing so much better in gaming than cricket to increase it’s sales, popularity and overall game quality? To find out, let’s have a look at how the two stack up side by side.

For this analysis, I’ll use the most popular video game in each sport to compare: Don Bradman Cricket 14, the latest and most improved cricket game, made by Big Ant Studios, and FIFA 16 from the long-running, ever-popular FIFA series made by the giant gaming corporation EA Sports.

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Game modes

For years now, FIFA has set the standard of game modes, boasting the ever successful Ultimate Team feature – an opportunity for you to manage your own team, with the opportunity to build the squad of your dreams, all the while competiting online against other gamers or against the computer.

Other featured modes include Pro Clubs, Career, Tournament, Kick Off (a one-off exhibition match) and the chance to head out onto the training arena to hone your skills.

Don Bradman Cricket has surprised many with it’s new game mode features. Career Mode allows you to take a young rookie player from the starting point of domestic cricket all the way to international glory.

While Career Mode is the definite highlight, there’s also the chance to head into the nets to practise, as well as being able to take part in many different tournaments such as a Twenty20 domestic competition or an international Test series.

Verdict: As improved as Don Bradman cricket’s game modes might be though, FIFA takes an easy victory with their groundbreaking features.

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Graphics

A while ago, the contest in the graphics department between a cricket and football video game wouldn’t have been close. However, cricket games have come along in leaps and bounds in the last few years.

Don Bradman Cricket has fantastic picturesque stadiums, realistic crowds and player likenesses that look every bit the real deal. However, as impressive as the improvement has been, football still holds the upper hand.

With every edition of FIFA it’s amazing that the graphics are able to get better and better. Nowadays it’s hard to even distinguish the difference between a FIFA game or an actual real football match live on a HD televison, such is the quality of the stadia, players and kits.

Verdict: A worthy effort from Don Bradman cricket, but FIFA takes the win for this one.

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In-game commentary

This one isn’t even a contest. If commentary comparisons were a boxing match between these two sports games, FIFA wins by K.O.

Don Bradman Cricket has recruited a pair of relatively unknown cricket commentators – Matthew Hill, who is actually an Australian horse racing caller, and David Basheer, who chiefly covers football on SBS - to add their quotes to the game in a repetitive and, frankly, a boring manner.

FIFA boasts two well known and respected football pundits, Martin Tyler and and Alan Smith to add an authentic voice to the action, as well as Sky News reporter Geoff Shreeves to provide injury updates from the sideline.

Verdict: Another easy win for FIFA here.

Gameplay

Arguably the most important aspect of a sports game, both games have some great aspects to their gameplay.

Another area in which cricket games have improved massively, Don Bradman Cricket features some very realistic and at times thrilling gameplay.

With a drastic gain in the difficulty settings, the game is much more engaging and exciting than it’s predecassors. While there is still some faults – some ungainly looking batting strokes, unrealistic fielding abilities and so forth, this is a very solid effort on cricket’s behalf.

Again though, FIFA is next-level and without a peer in the gameplay area of video games. Every single detail of the game is almost as near to the actual event as possible.

Whether it’s sprinting down the field, dribbling through traffic, an athletic goalkeeper save or performing a skill move, you’d be hard pressed to find a single fault in FIFA’s level of gameplay. With quality like this it’s not hard to see why the series is so popular.

Verdict: A commendable effort by Don Bradman cricket, but FIFA takes the prize again.

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Licensing

Another brutal knockout win to football here.

Throughout the history of cricket video games, never have they been able to secure full licensing rights to stadia, player names and offiical team kits, a trend continued with Don Bradman Cricket. While fans were able to create and download teams using the Fan Hub, the lack of offical stadiums and the use of poor imitation uniforms is disappointing.

FIFA reigns supreme with full access to everything football has to offer. Being able to play as your favourite player, in your favourite team, wearing the official team kit and playing at their real home ground doesn't get much better as a sports gaming fan.

Verdict: A crushing victory for FIFA on this front.

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Marketing

In today’s age where social media has more power than ever as well as any information you could ever need only being a click away, marketing is more important than ever.

With the massive budget FIFA enjoys dwarfing the relatively small allowance Don Bradman Cricket has access to, the two games in focus have employed vastly different marketing strategies to try and spread the word and create a buzz around their product.

Big Ant Studios, creators of Don Bradman Cricket, chose to hear the fan’s voices in the lead up to release and provided them with a lot of power to help improve some features.

For instance, fans were able to create players and teams before the game had become available to play and upload them to a Fan Hub, then use those teams when the game was released. Gameplay videos were uploaded to Big Ant’s YouTube to also show what the game had to offer.

This “fans-first” approach worked, with the game successfully being purchased by a large number of consumers.

EA Sports, creators of FIFA, went a different route however. Being a bigger company with an established fan base, less marketing was needed to push their product.

A release date and some pictures of the new cover art was all that was needed to get people excited for this year’s edition. Closer to release date, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 players were able to trial a demo of the game to great excitement from gamers.

All in all, these marketing techniques were very different but at the end of the day, they were both successful and both achieved their goals.

Verdict: Too close to split, considering both had positive outcomes, this one is a draw.

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The last word

So sports fans, there you have it. A landslide victory for football with the FIFA video game.

Cricket has definitely shown some improvement with Don Bradman Cricket 14 however, and if they continue their rise they may well be on the same level as the other top line sports games one day in the not so distant future.

Until then though, you can expect to play a whole lot more of FIFA with your mates given it’s extreme popularity and quality!