I've bought the last three FIFA games, I hate COD and I have a 33.000SEK gaming rig and a PS4 with a 65" 4k TV, filthy casual, right?

Not just one type of person buys these games, although I'm sure that the majority of people who play FIFA don't play many of the other games I play. People who are very passionate about football are often FIFA fans, and the games are a great way of playing with your favorite team and players, building the squad, using your own tactics, finding new talent etc. And the gameplay is really addictive and fun if you enjoy the sport.

Sakaguchi also worked on Chrono Trigger, before FF7, and Parasite Eve in the between of FF7 and 10.

They'd need to earn millions just to break even. All those licences aren't cheap.

I don't think people realise just how much football licences for the top leagues cost. The reason PES has so few in comparison isn't just EA getting exclusivity. They also choose not to license others to cut costs.

Most people I know that buy FIFA but a healthy ammount of other games. Hell, I buy 1 FIFA every 2 years and I get lots of other games

This is true, some TV networks in Scandinavia were recently in trouble with their customers for not offering the same breadth in football any more, especially Ligue 1 in France and the Premier League have become really costly, even the FA Cup costs a lot today. If I'm not mistaken, one channel (TV2 in Norway) claimed that rights to show Premier League alone, even in such a small country, cost around 2.000.000.000 NOKm which is probably the same cost as the UEFA Euros, possibly even slightly more.
Champion's League is much the same story and the Euro League has grown in popularity, and thus in price as well, many networks are reconciling the cost by offering content through streaming services.
I had one such sports streaming service, they showed PL, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, FA Cup and Champion's League, it cost me 399NOK (50$) every month. I ended my membership when they said they were upping the price again and in addition they were separating the content, UFC and boxing got its own channel for 25$ a month, and there was to be two football packages, having both would end up costing me about 80$ per month, which is far beyond acceptable for me, I'm not nearly keen enough on football to pay that much for it.

Can't you get Viasat Sport (or Viaplay) in Sweden? I pay 29€ for it a month I think and can watch most premier league, la liga, serie A, champions league matches and some FA Cup games. It's pretty damn great.

Anyway, great sales for Fifa and digital sales on X1 must be high too because you get a discount with EA access. I'm still not convinced about online FUT gameplay though, it's quite different than Fifa16 :P

Viaplay Sport is what I had, but they're separating the packages here now, since they added Ligue 1 this fall, they've moved the FA cup and added a package called Viaplay Premium, if you want all the football you had before, you need two packages, three if you were watching UFC as well (which I was). As for Ligue 1 being added; no one really asked for it, it's a league with fairly low-level teams except for the money machine that is PSG and Swedes only wanted it due to Zlatan (who is now gone to the PL instead...). I'd much rather see the Bundesliga myself and I believe the majority feel the same way, if you're gonna shell out anyway.

That seems odd. I largely agree except I wouldn't criticise Britons to the same extent because I'm not one. But as you are then I think criticism of cringy aspects of ones own culture is fair game.

Exactly!!

why was this moderated lol