FIFA 23 will be the final game in the series made by behemoth studio Electronic Arts
After almost three decades, world football's governing body FIFA will cut ties with its videogame partner Electronic Arts, leaving the fate of the monster series in limbo. It is understood that FIFA were demanding an increase in the license fee paid to them by EA and the developer decided to go it alone instead.
Murmourings of a rift started late last year when EA Sports general manager Cam Weber wrote in a blog post that the company was reviewing its licensing deal with FIFA and considering a name change. Quabbles over money, NFTs and eSports events have led to this earth-shattering break-up.
Since the early 90s, FIFA's yearly offering has been one of the biggest games on the market. EA Sports, while it has several other successful franchies, least of all Madden, is synonymous with FIFA throughout the world. They will now focus their attention on developing a new game called EA Sports FC.
What does this mean for Electronic Arts?
It is yet to be seen how successful the new series will be but there are plenty of factors to be positive about. FIFA is a game which changes only slightly every year, one of the many facts for which it is heavily criticised in the online gaming community, but in this context that is a huge benefit. EA won't need to reinvent the wheel. They have the game and they can improve it as and where they see fit. The new game will be FIFA in all but name.
More importantly, they have the licenses. When the news dropped of this seismic divorce, many people wrongly thought that by losing the deal with FIFA, Electronic Arts would be losing the naming and likeness rights to the players and leagues, but we now understand that those agreements are done separately. FIFA will continue to have the rights to all the major competitions, the teams and players, apart from the few which they have already lost.
Several Italian clubs like Juventus (now known as Piemonte Calcio) and Roma (Roma FC) have cut ties with EA in recent years and that is expected to continue into the next game. These clubs have strange names and random custom badges, but their players' names and likenesses remain intact. Apart from these few clubs, the new EA Sports FC game will have all the same licenses and likenesses it needs, apart from the FIFA World Cup which of course won't feature in the game.
How will this affect FIFA?
FIFA, on the other hand, seem to be the ones most likely to feel the pain here. EA are only losing the FIFA brand name, which does of course carry some weight, but FIFA itself is losing an entire game, almost thirty years of development. The new studio who comes in to produce the new FIFA game will likely have nowhere near the level of experience, budget or relationships which its predecessor has.
Unless they can strike up a deal with Konami, the producer of eFootball (formerly Pro Evolution Soccer), in which they would drop that series and jump onto FIFA, it's unlikely the new iteration will be on par with the new EA game in terms of gameplay. It will of course have the recognisable, and let's face it, far less clunky title, but consumers won't chose FIFA for that alone. They'll be able to get the player faces and names on EA Sport FC so this new FIFA will need to be at least competitive as a game itself.
For many years, PES (also known as Pro Evo) was widely considered the better game to play among fans but the majority stuck with FIFA because of the real player names and likenesses which PES lacked. If FIFA could put together an agreement whereby they would have all or most of the same licenses as EA Sport FC, by striking deals with the leagues and clubs, and produce a game as good to play (e.g. one made by Konami), this competition could get interesting.
What happens now?
Right now, nothing. This breakup only comes into force next season. FIFA 23 will come out as planned probably in late September or early October and will be released by EA Sports. Then next year we will see EA Sport FC and FIFA 24 emerge as two new football games on the market and we'll see what happens from there.
One thing is for sure - the football videogame landscape is about to see a seismic shift and will never be the same again.
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