EA Sports' annual soccer video game simulation has accurately predicted the winner of the FIFA World Cup five times in a row, most recently with Spain's victory. This unbroken streak of accurate predictions now extends back 16 years to 2010.
Spain's 1-0 win over Argentina secured their second World Cup trophy, validating EA's simulation which predicted their triumph before the tournament commenced on June 6. This prediction was the first made under the EA Sports FC branding, following EA's separation from the official FIFA license.
The game series, formerly known as FIFA, now features an unlicensed international tournament mode called "The World's Game," which includes all the national teams and players from the real-world competition. A rival, officially licensed game from FIFA, was streamed over Netflix and utilized smartphones as controllers.
EA attributes the accuracy of its predictions to the extensive data it collects on individual player attributes and team performance. The simulation runs AI-powered projections of each match, from the group stages through to the knockout rounds. While EA also conducts similar simulations for other sports, such as the Super Bowl in Madden NFL and the Stanley Cup in NHL, these have proven to be significantly less accurate.