FIFA 10 chief David Rutter spoke to Darren Cross at HQ in Vancouver just ahead of the game’s launch to tell him how he likes to play the game, offer his top tips and reveal what sort of player he is on a real footy pitch…

First off Dave, in your typical day, how often do you play the game?
“I get in to work at 9am and play constantly until 10am, usually against a couple of people who get in at around the same time or slightly earlier – it’s quiet in the office until around 10am. I’m then in meetings until around noon. If those meetings are one-on-one then we’ll sometimes play FIFA 10 during those. I go to the gym at lunch if I can, then from 1pm to 5pm it’ll be similar to the morning. Today, for example, I’ve probably played 15 games of FIFA 10 so far, then once I’ve finished with doing interviews I’ll grab some food and stay in the office until around 9pm.”

You basically play it all day then! When you find yourself with free time after work, do you ever fancy a game of FIFA online?
“Yes! With FIFA 09 we had a lot of online matches. We had an achievement last year that unlocked an accomplishment on 360 if you played against a member of the Development Team and beat us. Then if you beat someone who had beaten us you got the accomplishment transmitted to you, like a virus! That was quite good fun. I’m really keen to get out there and play real people but, I’ll be honest, I’m not that good online. Within a week of FIFA 10’s release there will be people playing online around the world who are so much better than everyone here – it’s quite terrifying!”

What team do you mostly play as?
“It depends – if you come into my office to play me at FIFA 10 and you choose Barcelona, I’ll choose Real Madrid. But if you came in here and chose QPR, I’d play as Leicester! I like it to be fair!”

What kind of player are you? Do you like to knock it around or are you very direct?
“I’m usually very direct, but I tend to adapt my style to how the other person is playing. For example, if I’m playing Matt Jones – our Group Art Director – he’s not very good, so I’ll be very direct going forward and very aggressive in defence. But if I’m playing Gary or Aaron then I’ll be a lot more careful, otherwise they’ll completely rip me apart!”

Do games get competitive within the team?
“Yes – very much so! I’m an alright player, I’m not the best but I’m not bad, but we’ve got a few very good players. On Fridays in particular I try not to have meetings and all day people will come and try to beat me, which is good fun!”

So, who’s the best player in the team?
“Gary’s very good, and so are Ben and Aaron. For the last few years we’ve had professional gamers on the team, and I’ve played against the FIFA Interactive World Cup winner and a few of the other guys who came very close. They’re all obviously very good as well. I think I lost 1-0 to the player who won the entire thing, I beat a couple of the finalists, and I lost badly to one or two others. I played a guy in Poland on our Polish Producer Tour for 10 and he hammered me 3-1 or something like that!”

Do you use any of the trick moves?
“Not so much. I’m not a showboater!”

Not even when you’re a few goals up?
“No not really – I’d rather just win by a lot of goals! When I’m playing football on a real pitch I am not a showboater, and I’m not when I’m playing FIFA either. What I’ve noticed from playing people from all over the world is that players from different countries have different styles of playing. So you’ll see that the French and Mexican players are very trick orientated – they will try to do tricks in a very artistic way with lots of flair. I still say that Mexican FIFA players are by far the best I’ve ever played against. I don’t know why but they’re all brilliant at it!”

How about real footy. Do you watch a lot of it?
“Yes! Almost everyone has a TV in the office here and we try to use real football as a comparison. You see things in every game of football that we either don’t do well enough or don’t do at all, so watching a real game of football can be somewhat analytical for me as well. I find it much easier to relax watching football than I do to relax playing FIFA, but at the same time I see things and think ‘Wow, we’ve got to do that!’ For example, our Set Piece Creator came about because wanted to improve set pieces and used Thomas Brolin’s free-kick as an example of something we couldn’t do in our game – that escalated into a feature!”


And you mentioned earlier that you play…
“We have two leagues that run in the office – the recreational league and the Premiership. I’m in the Premiership and we have national teams as our strips. Last year I played for England and this year I play for France – it’s a random draw. The standard here is very high. One of our animators was a finalist in the Red Bull Freestyle Footballing Championship, so he’s very good. Gary is also good and Aaron used to play for the Jamaican youth team, so he’s pretty good too!”

Are you any good?
“I’m not all that! I can run around a lot and pass. I would describe myself as a spirited and slightly-too-old-to-be-agile winger!”

Finally, have you got any tips that could help readers improve as FIFA 10 players?
“It would be a combination of tips really. First of all, don’t sprint around everywhere because you will get punished! Also, don’t use the double press all the time, because you will pull your own players out of position and a smart opposition player will be able to exploit that. Another tip is to use Skilled Dribbling to face off, then just drop the left trigger off and sprint out – it’s really handy for a very fast change of direction and that’s one of the ways I get around opposition players.

Finally, don’t always play as teams like Manchester United, Real Madrid or Barcelona if you don’t support them – do try to play as your own team. If you keep using your own team then you’ll learn how to play as them and then you’ll be much better when you do play as one of the other big teams. Also, if your mate comes round who thinks he’s a bit special with one of the super teams, but you’ve been practising as Leicester City and are alright with them, then that can be quite humiliating for your mate!