World Cup producer on tackling quitters
Could incentivise people for staying course.
Update: Simon Humber has contacted Eurogamer to clarify the quotes below. "What I believe I said to Mr Minkley, when asked about quitting, was that there is another way to think about the problem," he wrote in an email.
"Namely, how do you design an experience where quitting is totally counterproductive to the metagame, where it actually holds you back more than it would to keep on playing the match and accepting you've been beaten? I explained that this is another way we're thinking when it comes to designing our online experiences for the future."
Humber is line producer on 2010 FIFA World Cup and wanted us to make it clear that he can't speak for the FIFA 11 team, and that we will have to wait for that game to be announced before we can find out how FIFA producer David Rutter and his team have chosen to address quitting.
Original Story: EA Canada has said it is working on ways to stop people quitting out of FIFA games online when they find themselves in a losing position.
2010 FIFA World Cup line producer Simon Humber told Eurogamer during a recent hands-on event that the FIFA 11 team was considering rewarding "people for completing matches rather than quitting out".
"It's a complex problem. We do have the five-minute rule: if you find your connection's poor you can drop out within the first five minutes.
"After that there should be a penalty; just in the online world there are complexities that mean by the time the data comes back to our servers, something there means it doesn't award the win to the right person. So we're always looking to improve that."
Speaking to Eurogamer on Twitter recently, FIFA lead producer David Rutter admitted the team had been "talking about 'rage quitting' a lot recently" as part of their preparation for FIFA 11, which is due out in Q3 this year.
Sadly, however, it doesn't sound like anything will be ready for World Cup. "We haven't done anything different for this game as far as I know," line producer Humber told us.
They have fixed the goalkeepers though! Among "over 100 enhancements to gameplay", apparently. Check out our 2010 FIFA World Cup hands-on today to find out what some of them are.
2010 FIFA World Cup is due out for PS3, PSP, Wii and Xbox 360 on 30th April.