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Businesses Games

EA Sports To Rename FIFA Video Game Series After Failing To Reach Agreement (theathletic.com) 40

EA Sports will rename their popular FIFA game series after they failed to extend their partnership with world football's governing body. From a report: The Athletic revealed in October that EA Sports were considering renaming their gaming series and it has now been revealed it will be called EA Sports FC from 2023. EA Sports said in a statement: "After nearly 30 years of creating genre-defining interactive football experiences, we will soon begin an exciting new era. Next year, EA SPORTS FC will become the future of football from EA SPORTS. Alongside our 300+ licence partners across the sport, we're ready to take global football experiences to new heights, on behalf of all football fans around the world. Everything you love about our games will be part of EA SPORTS FC -- the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there. Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football will all be there." EA Sports have been producing an annual version of the football video game since 1993, along with various spin-off editions. It is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.
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EA Sports To Rename FIFA Video Game Series After Failing To Reach Agreement

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  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @12:36PM (#62519948)
    They've also had to rename their other flagship series to "John Madden's Handegg".
  • by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @12:38PM (#62519958)
    I like that is as much as EA was willing to give.
    Which after writing that, make a weird sort of sense.
  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @12:39PM (#62519962)
    1. That EA sports game
    2. The Same 12
    3. Console Peons Membership Card
    4. I wasted yet another 79$
    • 1. That EA sports game

      Doesn't really work since EA does all the sports games. Another problem they have.

      2. The Same 12

      This is confusing to me. Soccer has 11 players on the per side. Same with football.

      • by sinij ( 911942 )

        2. The Same 12

        This is confusing to me. Soccer has 11 players on the per side. Same with football.

        My bad, for some reason I thought it was 12 with the goalie.

        • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

          It's 12 with the coach

          • There is a coach, assistant coach, goalkeeper coach, medical and/or massage experts, ... Also there are at least 3 reserve players (although some games allow unlimited replacements).

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Canadian football is 12 a side, but sadly EA never has made a game for it.

          • Y'all also have that weird one point, and last I recall, had the goal post in the middle of play.
            Bunch of weirdos.
            • The worst part about Canadian football is the whole "only 3 downs to advance the play 10 yards" thing.
              Punting is not very exciting.

          • Canadian football? Is that the thing where they hit each other with sticks while skating?

      • Football is a type of sport, soccer is one varient as is Rugby, and there are quite a few others. Some soccer leagues have as few as 9 players and I've seen as many as 13. Some allow 2 or 3 additional players in uniform who can be substitutes, some allow more. I don't follow FIFA so I'm not sure what their rules currently are, but last time I checked they don't even have a standard sized field.
        • by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Futsal is a kind of football game, and it has five players per team on the court. Football games got their name because they're played on foot, as opposed to horseball games like polo.

  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @12:45PM (#62519978)

    If they define genre by literally releasing the same game over and over again with a slightly different skin and demanding full price every time, then sure it's genre defining. Actually that's how EA has defined the entire sports games genre.

  • by sapgau ( 413511 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @01:16PM (#62520096) Journal
    Sounds like FIFA bluffed and lost. Blinded by greed, couldn't deal with a bigger capitalist beast.
    • by Jamlad ( 3436419 )
      I suspect there's plenty of greed to go around on both sides.
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        I suspect there's plenty of greed to go around on both sides.

        Yep, EA thought that FIFA can't find someone else to publish their game, FIFA called that bluff and now they're trying to rebrand.

        Both realistically stand to lose, whilst FIFA has loads of other revenue streams (loads of other ways to fleece soccer fans), does EA? If EA Sports starts taking a loss could the company survive? The depend on millions forking out $80+ for the same game every year.

        If FIFA can get another developer/publisher to produce a new FIFA title quickly enough... EA are well and trul

  • by Anonymous Coward

    1) Call it "EA Football" and confuse a bunch of Americans (and Canadians, and Australians).
    2) Call it "EA Soccer" and piss off a bunch of pedantic Brits.

    • The term "soccer" was British to begin with. It comes from "Association Football" (as opposed to Rugby Football) and had early origins as an Oxford slang term, which ironically may have began at Rugby School.

      • Exactly. FIFA waged a successful PR campaign to have their ruleset (and governing body) become synonymous with the term "football" in most places exactly the same as how the NFL did it in the US.
  • Did EA have to pay FIFA to use FIFA logo or did FIFA have to pay EA to publish FIFA game?
    • Good question, considering the ego of both organizations...

    • Re: Agreement? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by KingCarrot ( 897403 )
      The last article was talking about how much money the fifa organisation got from the deal. A common gripe with these ea sports games is that most of the money earned from players go to licensing deals, not to actually making the games good or even just better. You often see up coming game companies creating similar games that are much better, since they actually have to care about gameplay and content. Sometimes they then get the licensing deal afterwards. (Example is cyanide studios who created a knock off
  • All the jokes can be told.

  • It was a few months back, but people announced a quarter billion dollars each year [playstationlifestyle.net] for a four year deal.

    I have no idea how much the difference is between the FIFA brand and their new non-FIFA branding, but it would be hard to see that the name is bringing up the total revenue by the quarter billion each year. It might reduce it by a few million, but it is probably a good decision for EA.

    • EA will lose more then you expect on this, not really due to some inherent FIFA brand appeal, but because their franchise is forced to change name. After well over 20 years FIFA is recognized as a top tier football game by everyone. Now they will have issues with transferring this recognition to a new brand - this is going to cost them a lot in advertising budgets.

      • I'm sure the business folks have done the math and estimated sales forecasts. Only time will tell.

        Updated news report numbers are about $300M per year for the license. If the lose $200M, even $250M in sales each year (which I think is unlikely) they will still be ahead financially.

  • I feel like this is going to hurt their sales and I love it. EA is a garbage publisher who drives any property they acquire into the ground. If they have less money coming in from their sports titles they'll have less for buying studios I like.

  • apparently FIFA plans to release game named FIFA 24. Poor people that fall for this and buy the new game... I give it about 95% chance to be complete junk

    "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 a statement Monday. "The FIFA name is the only global, original title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25, and FIFA 26, and so on—the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain fore

  • when you see EA billboards at soccer games, you know who's the gorilla in the room. Fifa asked to double the yearly fee (150 million to 300 million) and called EA's bluff.

    FIFA has 1-2 billion of income.

    EA is hovering at 20-22 billion. They don't need Fifa and will continue to strive without them

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