THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY’S arguably most iconic sports franchise will look very different from July 2024 after Electronic Arts and its subsidiary EA Sports end a three-decade partnership with FIFA, the gaming behemoth announced Tuesday.
Starting next year, the hugely popular FIFA video game franchise will be known as “EA SPORTS FC”.
Concomitantly, FIFA announced it was diversifying its gaming rights and launching new non-sim football games. For the first time, FIFA will launch new football video games developed with third-party studios and publishers in the lead-up to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023.
A number of new non-simulation games are already under production and will launch during the third quarter of this year. The first is a tailored gaming experience featuring the biggest event on earth, the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, which will bring new, interactive experiences to fans across the globe, football’s world governing body declared.
Following this initial unveiling, FIFA will launch further games and virtual experiences around this year’s FIFA World Cup. Additional projects are also under discussion with publishers ahead of next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Alongside the new games, FIFA has granted a new short-term extension to existing publisher EA SPORTS to launch a new FIFA 23 title later this year, which will feature the men’s and women’s FIFA World Cup competitions in one edition for the first time.
“I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in the statement. “FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26, and so on — the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain THE BEST.”
“This new independent platform will bring fresh opportunity – to innovate, create and evolve,” Cam Weber, EVP and group GM for EA Sports & Racing, said in a statement. “EA SPORTS FC will allow us to realize this future and much more … but not before we deliver our most expansive game ever with our current naming rights partner, FIFA, for one more year,” he added.
EA will still retain most of the team and player likenesses that have made its game so popular, thanks to separate license agreements with the Premier League, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Serie A, MLS, UEFA, CONMEBOL and NIKE.
While EA Sports owns several other popular video game sports franchises, including Madden (American football), NHL (hockey), the PGA tour (golf) and Formula 1 (racing), the company says FIFA is by far its biggest money maker.
“FIFA is our largest and most popular game and franchise,” the company said in its latest annual report last year. “Revenue from our FIFA franchise, including the annualized console and PC game which is consistently one of the best-selling games in the marketplace … is material to our business and will continue to be so.”
According to the New York Times, the FIFA franchise has generated more than $20 billion in sales over the past two decades. In its annual report, the company said it has “historically derived a significant portion of our net revenue” — which totaled nearly $7 billion in the company’s last fiscal year — from FIFA.
FIFA, meanwhile, stated that the recently confirmed extension with EA SPORTS “is a new arrangement that grants rights for the simulation football category only, freeing up broader gaming rights for FIFA and different gaming publishers to launch new games and more deeply immersive experiences for fans and football stakeholders”.
FIFA further stated: “This new, non-exclusive licensing model follows on from an extended period of discussions between the parties relating to FIFA’s future gaming vision. As announced in October 2021, FIFA intends to work with a range of partners rather than lock up all gaming and esports rights exclusively with one publisher for the long term.
“As well as launching a portfolio of new games during 2022 and 2023, FIFA is currently engaging with leading game publishers, media companies and investors in regard to the development of a major new FIFA simulation football game title for 2024.”
FIFA’s new gaming model has been developed in parallel with FIFA+, the recently launched direct-to-consumer media platform.
