In short: Electronic Arts’ FIFA Soccer lost almost half of its American players in August, according to data collected by insight platform App Ape. While the game had over half a million U.S. players in July, over 260,000 uninstalled it last month, whereas almost three-quarters of those who still have it on their smartphones and tablets are presently categorized as inactive, i.e. haven’t launched it in over a month. FIFA Soccer has hence dropped to around 310,000 Android and iOS users in the U.S., though the app maintained its relatively high level of gender diversity throughout the summer, with close to a third (31.7-percent) of its stateside users being female, as per the same source.
Background: The spike in FIFA Soccer’s popularity among American smartphone users was likely prompted by this year’s World Cup, the most prestigious and popular competition in all of sports. Mobile gamers in the U.S. are now turning their attention to NFL whose latest season started on Thursday; App Ape estimates EA’s Madden NFL game currently has close to 630,000 American users (with 60-percent being male) on Android alone, up almost 130,000 from July, whereas its number of monthly active Android users in the country grew by over 200,000 to 355,000 in August. Other popular football-centric apps have been experiencing similar surges over the last month, the analytics platform reveals.
The impact: With soccer being nowhere near the title of America’s most popular sport, the fact that U.S. users lost interest in digital recreations of the thereof following the conclusion of the World Cup shouldn’t significantly affect EA’s 2018 bottom line. If anything, the World Cup effect boosted FIFA Soccer’s stateside performance to unsustainable highs and the developer-publisher was likely expecting this popularity drop. The decline still illustrates how not even the largest names in the app industry are immune to performance oscillation, especially in highly competitive niches such as sports.