It’s a thunderclap that the world of video games has just recorded this week, the stopping of the famous football game FIFA. A look back at a history of games… and big money, with Brice N’Guessan, editorial director of Video Games Magazine
franceinfo: The American publisher Electronic Arts has announced that it will no longer produce a football game stamped FIFA?
Brice N’Guessan: It is indeed a small earthquake in the video game industry. Since 1993, the American firm had a solid contract with FIFA to publish a football game every year. The attraction of this contract was obviously the possibility of officially using the names of players, clubs, competitions, in short, an essential official game for football fans.
However, the publisher has decided not to renew this contract, which means that the latest FIFA game produced by Electronic Arts will be released this year, more precisely at the start of the school year.
A daring decision when you know that the game prances at the top of sales. Why this reversal?
When we talk about football, we often talk about big money, but when we talk to FIFA, we are talking about very, very big money. FIFA, which demanded $150 million every year from Electronic Arts, for the exploitation of its license, wanted to double the annual bill, and there is talk of a four-year contract for a total amount of more than a billion dollars.
It’s too much for Electronic Arts, which was pleased despite everything to have generated 20 billion dollars since the beginning of the game in 1993, enough to whet the appetite of Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA.
The last game, so FIFA 23 produced by Electronic Arts will arrive at the start of the school year, but what is Electronic Arts’ plan for the years to come?
The plan is very simple. The studio will continue the production of its football game but it will be renamed EA Sports FC from 2023. By losing the license, the fear of the fans? it is obviously to see the official names of footballers or teams disappear. To overcome this problem, Electronic Arts has taken the lead by signing more than 300 licensing agreements in order to be sure of finding all the stars of football and the leading championships.
A piece of news that should reassure players, but the story doesn’t end there…
A few hours after Electronic Arts’ announcement, FIFA’s press release was quick. The FIFA 24 game will therefore be produced by a new, undisclosed publisher, but above all the press release specifies that FIFA will entrust the license to other studios to develop new football games.
I don’t know if the quality will always be there but I would like to point out that in the mid-2000s the best-selling football game in France ahead of FIFA was called Pro Evolution Soccer, it did not have a license. official but it was number one because it was the best, proof that a name or a license is not a guarantee of quality!