From next year, they will come under a new banner, EA Sports FC while FIFA will make video games of its own.
The EA Sports and FIFA partnership is coming to an end.
The FIFA video game that was developed by the division of Electronic Arts is one of the most profitable brands in gaming history. The FIFA series has been produced by EA SPORTS for over 20 years and is now the largest sports video game franchise. The cost of the license was said to be one of the reasons the video game had to make the decision of ending the partnership, reported the BBC. But the good news is that EA will continue to make football video games. But from next year, they will come under a new banner, EA Sports FC.
As for FIFA, the football association has stated that they plan on releasing their very own rival games, "The Fifa name is the only global, original title," they stated.
Executive vice president of EA Sports, Cam Weber, stated: "[We] want to start by thanking this incredible community of more than 150 million fans for helping build the world’s biggest football entertainment platform. After nearly 30 years of creating genre-defining interactive football experiences, we will soon begin an exciting new era." He added, "Next year, EA Sports FC will become the future of football from EA Sports. Alongside our 300+ license partners across the sport, we’re ready to take global football experiences to new heights, on behalf of all football fans around the world."
David Jackson, vice president at EA Sports also said, "The world of football and the world of entertainment are changing, and they clash within our product. In the future, our players will demand of us the ability to be more expansive in that offering. At the moment, we engage in play as a primary form of interactive experience. Soon, watching and creating content are going to be equally as important for fans." He went on to explain, "Under the licensing conventions that we had agreed with Fifa 10 years ago, there were some restrictions that weren't going to allow us to be able to build those experiences for players."
Fans of the game could not help but wonder about the fate of FIFA 2023. EA Sports has, fortunately, confirmed that the new project would launch in 2023. So fans can expect FIFA 23 to be released as planned. The very first iteration of the football series was launched in 1993 under the title “FIFA International Soccer.” The game prides itself on "unrivaled authenticity" and with the game, videogamers could play with over 17,000 players and 700+ teams in more than 90 stadiums and over 30 leagues with the most true-to-life experience of The World’s Game.
"In terms of things that they'll miss," Jackson explained, "players will notice only two things: The name and a World Cup piece of content every four years. Outside of that, very little will change about the things they know and love about the current Fifa products. Probably the easiest thing that we could have done would have been to maintain the status quo. Fifa has been an incredibly successful game over time, but there are moments when you need to consider what the future looks like and we feel like building our own brand is the best for us."
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