The partnership between the FIFA brand and EA has been going on since 1993. Almost 30 years of FIFA licensing later, the CEO of EA Sports thinks it’s time to stop there. According to information collected by VGC, Andrew Wilson would indeed have declared that the name “FIFA” significantly delays the development of the games.
EA Sport would like to fly on its own
According to the same source, Wilson would have declared that, during a fairly empty year in terms of football (without a World Cup in the “real world”), the FIFA brand was only for the game “four letters on the cover in a world where people don’t even see it because they buy the games digitally.”
Other licenses were also mentioned by the CEO, which according to him would provide them with much more (athletes, stadiums, teams) that FIFA brings to EA Sports. The years without the World Cup could, according to him, turn out to be much more beneficial without the partnership with FIFA whose main use is precisely access to content from the Football World Cup to add to the game.
Another argument put forward by the CEO would be that ofmore creative freedom. Indeed, a partnership with the FIFA brand entails many copyrights and restrictions without which EA Sports could surely work faster and more freely.
“Our players tell us they want brands that are more culturally and commercially relevant to them in their markets, more deeply rooted in the game…brands like Nike. But as FIFA has a partnership with Adidas, we are not able to do”said the CEO of EA Sports.
FIFA 23, latest FIFA game?
After the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the production of FIFA 23, the contract between FIFA and EA Sports will end. It is quite possible that it will not be renewed because until then, the negotiations seemed to stagnate.
According to a report from New York TimesEA Sports would like more rights and freedom at the game level. FIFA would like to make EA pay for the prestige of its license twice more Dear than in the previous contract.
In the event that the contract is not renewed, EA Sports would then continue its production of football games, calling them differently. Simply.
What future for EA Sport and virtual football?
In the future, EA Sport has great ambitions for the license and argues that its players expect more and more innovation and progress in its games. “Looking to the future, we want to grow the franchise, and ironically the FIFA license has been an obstacle to that.”Wilson said.
EA Sport remains optimistic given the situation as the hypothetical changes could well be beneficial for the company. So the community will surely soon have to get used to not seeing these “four letters on the box“, but a new title, a sign of a whole new adventure!
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