It would be nice to see a new competitor on the market…if FIFA actually knows how to make a video game. Newly elected FIFA president Gianni Infantino still swears by the organized body making a new FIFA video game, even though its partnership with EA has ended.
The legendary, highly valuable (and perhaps highly predatory for consumers) partnership between the most notorious, respective, actors in video game world (Electronic Arts) and the football/soccer (FIFA) has finally ended.
With this year’s final edition to the FIFA franchise, FIFA 23, finally being marketed, sold, and widely distributed to the masses, EA no longer has the rights to create “FIFA” games as its 30-year partnership with FIFA has ended.
Of course, they still have the rights to the Premier League branding, players, clubs, stadiums, etc., La Liga’s branding, players, clubs, stadiums, etc., the Bundesliga’s branding, players, clubs, and (nearly all) stadiums, etc. all Ligue 1 branding, players, clubs, and a few stadiums, etc., and most of the Serie A branding, all the players, clubs, and a few stadiums, but they just can’t call their games “FIFA” anymore.
Instead, EA will now be naming their football/soccer games EA Sports FC from now until they either get or develop a far better name. I think I’m speaking for most people when I say that “EA Sports FC” might be one of the all-time worst sports video game names in the history of the genre, let alone the football/soccer niche.
So, aside from the World Cup game modes, EA is set for making football/soccer games for the foreseeable future…which is not something I can definitively say about FIFA.
Truthfully, I don’t see how FIFA will even be able to make a fun, competitive, realistic, and engaging football/soccer game as the organized body is not only full of incompetent people, but it also only (as far as I’m aware) has the branding rights to the FIFA brand itself.
EA had to individually negotiate with the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, etc. for the ability to put said league’s branding, history, tradition, clubs, etc. into their games, costing the video game company hundreds of millions of pounds in the process. The Premier League and EA agreed to a 6-year, $500M branding rights deal alone back in February!
Thus, it makes sense why EA backed out of its deal with FIFA as the organized body was supposedly asking for a $1B deal and the option to put NFTs and other cryptocurrencies into the game…which I’m actually kind of shocked EA didn’t gobble up. Not the $1B deal part, obviously, but the NFT/cryptocurrency aspect as that’s right in their wheelhouse.
I mean, Ultimate Team, which generated over $4B for the company between April 2020 and March 2021 (FIFA 20), is pretty much a quasi-online casino, but the player bets on getting great players instead of great monetary prizes (i.e.: cash).
Still, FIFA would have to acquire the rights to these leagues (if they are not exclusive with EA), and then it would have to go through the arduous process of picking out the right video game developer, creating new video game source code from scratch, making the game as fun, enjoyable, and similar to the past FIFA iterations as possible, and then making the game yearly.
Seeing as how FIFA can barely manage to scrape together a month-long tournament when given four years to plan, I don’t know how they plan on resurrecting the FIFA brand.
Therefore, as of this moment, the iconic FIFA brand seems to have gone the way of the dodo, the buffalo, and NFTs…
Images Source: Featured Image: (Electronic Arts/FIFA) (FIFA 23 | Official Launch Trailer | Matchday For The World’s Game – YouTube)
