What if the next edition of the most famous football video game wasn't called
Fifa 23
, but
EA Sports FC
?
This scenario is looming, as the video game publisher EA and the International Football Federation are in full arm wrestling over the granting of the prestigious license.
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Fifa has been working with EA for nearly thirty years, which publishes a football video game in its name every year. Over 320 million
Fifa
games
have been sold across the world; in France, the saga appears every year or almost at the top of the best sales of video games, with more than 1 million copies sold per year.
According to the
New York Times
, EA pays Fifa $ 150 million annually to use its name and the “Fifa World Cup” brand.
The federation wants to see this amount doubled in order to collect $ 1 billion every four years.
She also wants the license to be strictly limited to the creation of video games.
EA, on the other hand, would like to extend the Fifa brand to other lucrative universes, such as unique virtual objects (NFT) or the organization of e-sport tournaments.
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The American publisher can take the risk of doing without the Fifa license.
He has the exclusive rights to the biggest championships (Liga, Premier League, Champions League…) and has just renewed his contract with Fifpro, which allows him to use the names and faces of professional football players.
Nothing would change in the famous game… except its name.
To prepare for this, EA has just registered the EA Sports FC brand in Europe.
