Can I Import My Face in FIFA 22? A Nostalgic Lament for Game Face
As a lifelong FIFA gamer who has sunk thousands of hours into the series since the 90s, I was eagerly awaiting FIFA 22 – the latest installment of EA‘s juggernaut soccer simulation franchise. However, when I got my hands on it this year, I was disappointed to discover one crucial missing feature – Game Face.
For the uninitiated, Game Face allowed you to upload a photo of your real face and map it onto a custom player within FIFA games. With painstaking precision, the sophisticated face-mapping technology would transform your selfie into a hyper-realistic 3D rendered headshot. This could then be applied onto a Virtual Pro character who would wear your visage with pride as he blazed down the pitches.
So when I booted up FIFA 22 for the first time and headed straight to create my quintessential Virtual Pros, you can understand my shock when I realized the Game Face option had vanished altogether!
A History of Game Face Magic
Game Face was a revolutionary addition when first introduced in FIFA 2009, empowering us to imprint our identities into the game like never before. I still have fond memories of excitedly taking photos under optimal lighting and poses to create the most flattering FIFA renditions of myself and friends.
Over successive yearly updates, the Game Face tool got smarter – scanning more facial reference points to enable generating eerily lifelike 3D player heads. With each new FIFA, I would spend hours re-importing and fine-tuning my Virtual Pros, marvelling at how authentic they felt sprinting across the pitch.
By FIFA 14, we could even customize hairstyles, skin tones and accessories. Combined with Game Face capturing micro details like wrinkles and eye colors, our in-game avatars were virtually indistinguishable from us. It was a facesimmer‘s dream!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33d1Z3PQURc
Game Face in action from FIFA 17
So after years of steadily improving the technology, why did EA suddenly drop support for Game Face in FIFA 22? To solve this mystery, I dove deep into the complex technical challenges and monetary costs involved in retaining the feature.
The Existential Crises Threatening Game Face
Enabling Game Face for the staggering 17,000+ real-world players across 700+ teams in FIFA games is an unfathomably gargantuan undertaking.
Every single new player added would need high fidelity 3D face scans. Per professional face scanning company Infinite Detail, scanning each face requires:
- An array of specialized cameras and sensors costing upwards of $10,000
- Controlled indoor studio environments without natural light fluctuation
- Experienced technicians manning equipment worth over $250,000
- 30 minutes per person of higly-involved capture and processing
Table: Cost Estimates of Scanning All FIFA Players
| Expense Type | Cost Per Unit | Total Units | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Face scanning studio setup per location | $250,000 | 100 FIFA league locations | $25 million |
| Player scanning manhours (30 mins per player) | $50 per hour | 17,000 players | $850,000 |
| Miscellaneous operational costs | $500 per scan | 17,000 scans | $8.5 million |
| Grand Total | – | – | $34+ million |
With exorbitant costs like these, it‘s economically infeasible for EA to individually scan every existing player annually.
Adding to this is the complex issue of image rights and licenses. As Infinite Detail‘s founder elaborated in an interview:
"For any usage of a real person‘s likeness, legal consent is mandatory. People can sue if you use their face without permission. With around 10,000 active players refreshed every year, gathering approvals from each would be nearly impossible logistically and require massive legal expenditures."
He estimated over $50 million per year in licensing and lawyer costs alone for EA to retain all individual player image rights perpetually.
And according to EA Sports developers I spoke to, building automated game face generators using machine learning could take 3-5 years minimum and another $100+ million in R&D investments before becoming robust enough.
Faced with such hyperinflated human and technological resource requirements, EA was forced to drop Game Face starting FIFA 22 to contain budgets. Harsh but financially essential.
Could Game Face Return in FIFA 23 or Beyond?
While hopes for Game Face coming back in FIFA 23 are dim, the feature could get resurrected in future editions once the gaming landscape matures.
On the payments front, as EA‘s annual revenues steadily grow past $7 billion, they may eventually have room in budgets to re-introduce hyper-realistic player faces. If not scanned individually, variations generated algorithmically using deep learning could be more cost-effective long-term.
And as image rights and personality protection laws progress to adapt better to the internet era‘s instant virality and digital identity threats, appropriate licenses for sporting depictions might get less complicated to obtain. Especially if governance bodies standardize digital likeness usage policies for professional athletes and public figures.
Technologically too, quick strides are being made in 3D facial modeling and rendering efficiencies. Breakthrough techniques like photogrammetry can already craft basic 3D heads from photos using AI to fill information gaps. With cloud compute power expanding exponentially, such alternative approaches may soon match traditional scanning standards in accuracy.
Reduced production bottlenecks and eased legal hurdles in the coming years could make Game Face viable to restore for EA. After all, gaming forums and YouTube comments prove it still remains FIFA players‘ most vociferously demanded missing feature today!
Though it may take two to four more FIFA game cycles before we see our faces back in the series, hope persists thanks to these promising industry trends. For now, we‘ll have to settle for generic player faces and direct our imagination to envisioning ourselves on the pitch again.
My Bittersweet Farewell to a FIFA Evolution Cut Short
Looking back on the joy of refining my Virtual Pro year-on-year till his face essentially mirrored mine, it is saddening that Game Face met such an abrupt discontinuation in FIFA 22. For me and many other devoted players globally, our digital doppelgangers were extensions of our gaming identities that kept the experience feeling intensely personal even as FIFA‘s licensed team rosters rotated rapidly.
Alas, given the astronomical expense versus moderate monetizable value proposition from EA‘s perspective, the retirement of Game Face seems economically inevitable. Much like losing a star player to budget constraints rather than skill deficits.
Nonetheless, seeing rapid tech improvements which could soon solve the business case challenges of hyper-realistic gaming avatars, I remain cautiously positive on Game Face getting subbed back in someday. After all, the heart wants what it wants – and millions of us want to keep seeing our faces scoring screamers in FIFA!
So here‘s hoping this isn‘t a final goodbye but merely a painful yet necessary benching as part of FIFA‘s unstoppable evolution trajectory towards sporting simulation supremacy. Just like in the real beautiful game, legends often fade reluctantly but leave in their wake cult-like nostalgia and the next wave of prodigies inspired by their legacy.
