Electronic Arts is circulating the loss of FIFA rights, planning the future of football games

Electronic Arts, a respected video game company, is facing a turning point in its critical sports division. The company announced on Tuesday that it would part ways following the release of the next game in the FIFA franchise, ending a 20-year partnership that led to the world’s most popular football video game.

So, until the company announced strong earnings on Tuesday and revealed a plan for what would follow FIFA, the deal with FIFA remained key to the company.

“We’ve been working in that direction,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said on the company’s earnings call, outlining the company’s plans.

On Tuesday, EA announced the launch of a new football brand called EA Sports FC, which will use the more than 150 million user accounts provided by EA through FIFA games. EA already has agreements with the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, CONMEBOL Libertadores, Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and MLS, among others. All of these leagues (and, according to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, its 19,000 athletes) will be part of EA Sports FC.

“We are all excited about the future of football. When we think about the future of football now, we made the decision based on the experience our players wanted,” Wilson said, adding that the company would have more partners and “more game modes”.

According to Wilson, fans wanted EA to “just go beyond the core experience and really make the football experience work, and they wanted us to act really fast.”

In return, EA Sports FC will create a more personalized experience in local markets where needed, such as La Liga in Spain, the Bundesliga in Germany and the Premier League in the UK.

Meanwhile, FIFA highlighted the flexibility it now has after completing the deal with EA. The organization says it is already developing “sim-free” games under the FIFA brand (think more about cartoon games like nba jamie The franchise is NBA Simulation Games) for release later this year. It is also moving towards a “non-exclusive licensing model” and “is currently working with major game publishers, media companies and investors to develop a major new title for the FIFA 2024 simulation football game”.

“We ensured that the only authentic and real game that bears the FIFA name would be the best for football players and fans,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino. “The FIFA name is the only original global title. fifa23, fifa24, fifa25 s fifa26And so on: the name of FIFA is constant and will remain forever. The best.”

And yet, it’s hard to ignore the impact of the FIFA games produced by EA Sports. As long as there’s still a way out (EA Sports FIFA 23, will be released later this year), your loss is felt. EA cited FIFA as the top growth driver during full game pre-orders fifa22 It was the “most successful” game in 20 years of history.

Meanwhile, FIFA has benefited from EA’s long history of sports simulation games, including Done NFL franchise, as well as licensed games for the NBA, NHL, Formula 1, and UFC. More partners means more games, but if games don’t meet EA’s cap for FIFA games, it could backfire.

And whichever FIFA you choose to produce in future simulation games, you’ll have to build something from scratch and compete with EA’s newest FC offering. EA will use two decades of football simulation technology to switch to a new FC brand.

EA earned $1.82 billion in total revenue for the quarter and $225 million in net income, up from $1.35 billion and $76 million a year earlier, respectively. The company also issued guidance for fiscal 2023, with net income of $7.6-7.8 billion and revenue of $793-815 million.

The company also says it does not expect a return to the Russian market at this time.

The company later referred to FIFA 23 as the highlight.

“We’ve been working together as two organizations to convince ourselves that we wanted the biggest FIFA to bring us this year,” Wilson said. We were working on it because we thought it was important for our fans.