Image: @easportsfifa/Instagram
There are few people in global football's billion-person fanbase who haven't had at least some experience with the FIFA games at some point. The series, which since the days of the Super Nintendo has largely dominated the intersection between video games and soccer, is as culturally intertwined with the real-life sport on which it's based as perhaps any other series save for 2K's NBA games. Real-world players obsess over their in-game rankings. Millions of fans religiously buy the game each year, either as a way to bring a bit more of The Beautiful Game into their living rooms when they have their mates round, or in the pursuit of Ultimate Team domination. Put simply, it's about as mutually beneficial a partnership as you could hope to get for both the developer and FIFA itself, netting both parties billions of dollars of revenue each year.
So, with reports emerging over the past couple of weeks that FIFA is set to walk away from its licensing deal with EA Sports after more than 30 years of the two working together, why has the relationship suddenly turned sour? It's a decision that, on the outside at least, seems utterly foolish. Simply through licensing its seal of approval and the competitions it sanctions, FIFA makes more than $100 million from EA Sports for doing little more than lending its name to the franchise. What more could they want?
The answer, according to reports and unsurprisingly given the fact we're talking about FIFA, is simply more money. The New York Times reported that in its most recent round of negotiations over the future of the franchise, FIFA set a price of a billion dollars to allow EA sports to continue using the FIFA moniker in its titles over the next four years, nearly double the yearly rate EA pays right now. This may seem like an eye-watering amount, but given EA made over a billion dollars in revenue just from FIFA's Ultimate Team mode in the 2021 fiscal year, it's a figure EA could feasibly pay if they wanted to.
But they don't, and now, the two seem intent on going their separate ways. Barely a week apart, FIFA and EA sports both released statements announcing that they were looking to take the future of their games elsewhere. "FIFA is bullish and optimistic about its long-term future in gaming and esports following a comprehensive and strategic assessment of the gaming and interactive entertainment market," read FIFA's statement, which was markedly frosty towards EA: "it is clear that this needs to be a space that is occupied by more than one party controlling all rights."
"FIFA has also determined that the overlaps between virtual sport and FIFA's football competitions must be more closely aligned. In this respect, FIFA is excited about using the FIFA World Cup (with four billion viewers) and FIFA Women’s World Cup (with an audience of 1.2 billion) as platforms to launch and integrate exciting new games and esports offerings."
EA Sports, meanwhile, have reportedly filed a trademark for the term EA Sports FC, indicating this could be the series' ongoing title once the deal with FIFA expires.
FIFA is planning on ending its long-standing exclusive partnership with Electronic Arts.
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) October 18, 2021
FIFA is reportedly seeking $1 billion every four years— more than double what it currently receives from EA Sports, per @nytimes.
EA recently registered a trademark for “EA Sports FC” 🎮 pic.twitter.com/sYwvFgjtXE
So, who wins from the split? On the surface, it would appear that EA Sports has a lot more to lose in shedding its FIFA affiliation, but it's not that simple. FIFA's licensing deal with EA only encompasses the right to use the FIFA trademark and FIFA tournaments in its games, meaning all EA would really lose from the federation walking away is the rights to the FIFA name and, theoretically, three tournaments: the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, and the Club World Cup. EA will still hold the licensing rights to more than 300 other teams, leagues and national associations, meaning its ability to realistically depict the club soccer that dominates the sport's discourse most of the year will be little impacted. Given the franchise seems to be on the right course from a gameplay perspective as well, opting not to buy into FIFA's greed may well turn out to be a shrewd move.
FIFA, meanwhile, faces the unenviable task of creating a franchise both technically sound and appealing enough to wrestle away control from a franchise that to date has sold more than 325 million games. If they believe they can do so with little more than a world cup game every few years, well, they could be in for a rude shock.
This was originally published on GQ Australia.