The statistics for the matches are close to those of real-world leagues

Dec 20, 2012 23:31 GMT  ·  By

Organizers EA Sports, FIFA and the PlayStation brand announce that this year’s FIFA Interactive World Cup attracted no less than 1.6 million players in the first three months, smashing the record set by last year’s edition.

The virtual FIFA World Cup was first organized in 2004 and has grown in popularity since, with the most recent tournament managing to outperform real-world football in many key categories.

The scores have dramatically gone down in the final few tournaments, with an average of four goals scored during each match at the moment, while the English Premier League has an average of three, as do the Spanish La Liga and German Bundesliga.

When it comes to passing, the FIFA World Cup is even better, with a completion rate of 78 percent, which is bigger than that of the La Liga and only slightly smaller than in the English version of the game and the Bundesliga.

The one category where the virtual competition is still lacking is defensive, with just 25 successful tackles per match, a sharp decline over the 47 in the Bundesliga and even lower than in the United Kingdom.

All players who are interested in the FIFA World Cup can log into the official website and will then go through both online and offline qualifying matches before getting to the finals.

The big prize involves both cash and an invitation to attend the FIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony and meet some of the biggest football stars in the world.

The much-improved statistics for the FIFA World Cup are a testament to the dramatically improved quality of the series of football sims from EA Sports, which has introduced a new Player Impact Engine in its 2012 installment and refined the experience even more this year with the new uncertainty focused mechanics.