FCB Studio Review

FCB Studio is a new photo compositing and sharing app for fans of the world’s largest sports franchise: Barcelona Football Club. That’s about the only nice thing to say about it.

The design is horrible, crude, and convoluted. The monetization is unbelievably complex and expensive. And the whole app is walled-up to the point that no one would ever want to use it. At it’s heart, this was a great idea - create a photo with your favorite player (composted together of course) and share it. It’s simple concept that could have been a really fun little app. Then there's the XP system (yeah, XP, in a photo app) that requires paying for XP, either one time or a subscription, and using that XP to take a photo with your favorite player. There are plenty of options for poses and players, but in the end it costs $1-10 PER PHOTO.

And once that photo has been created? You're only able to share it in low resolution with lots of "branding" around it. Here’s my favorite: Luis Suarez trying to drink my beer (side note/football fan joke: I can’t wait to see how many people have photos of Suarez biting their ear).

It’s obvious that this app was designed and probably revised over and over by committee; a committee of people who have no experience with mobile apps. There are too many bad ideas shoved into one good idea. I’m not sure how this was ever released in it’s current state. Perhaps everyone involved was just done with it and signed off so that it would get out of their way.

FCB Studio shows a surprising lack of quality and care for a giant club that does so much right, especially with their social media that’s approaching 110 million fans on Facebook alone.