EA Sports FC promo image and FIFA 22 cover
(CNN Spanish) --
The video game developer and distributor Electronic Arts (EA) announced that the popular saga of soccer video games known as FIFA will stop calling themselves and from 2023 they will be known as EA Sports FC after not renewing the license agreement with FIFA.
As reported by
The New York Times
, in October 2021, Electronic Arts and FIFA end their agreement in December 2022 after the World Cup in Qatar.
The negotiations had lasted two years and, according to the media, FIFA was asking to collect more than a billion dollars for every four years of license.
The FIFA saga began in 1993 and will end in 2022 with what will be —according to Electronic Arts— its most ambitious installment to date.
It will be then from July 2023 when the company's football titles will change their name
The franchise became the benchmark for soccer in video games (more than 150 million players, according to EA in its press release) thanks to its playability, popular game modes and, in part, to the licenses it had acquired that it allowed him to use the names, logos, kits and official stadiums of the main clubs in the world.
The main competitor of this franchise has always been Pro Evolution Soccer (known as PES), the title developed by Konami.
However, in the last decade, it had lost its competitive space due to the lack of licenses and a gameplay that improved less than that of FIFA, especially in relation to game modes.
In fact, the Konami franchise is another one that also changed its name and, in an act of rebranding, Pro Evolution Soccer was renamed eFootball.
The two giants of football in the video game, FIFA and PES, leave behind the brand that made them famous and will now be EA Sports FC and eFootball.
Will EA Sports FC keep its game modes and league and team licenses?
The name change should not affect the playable mechanics and licenses they already own in upcoming EA football titles.
As announced by the company, the future EA Sports FC "will become the future of EA Sports football. With our more than 300 licenses in this sport, we are ready to take football experiences to new heights, on behalf of all fans of the soccer around the world.
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Without going any further, representatives of the Premier League, Bundesliga, UEFA or Conmebol have expressed their delight at continuing to work with EA as reflected in the official press release issued by the company, for which they will only lose all those licenses related exclusively to the FIFA and FIFPRO.
Thus, EA affirms that all the elements present in FIFA that players love about their games will continue in EA Sports.
And they cite modes such as Ultimate Team (which is the one that has become the online soccer benchmark), Pro Clubs, Volta and the entire portfolio with more than 19,000 soccer players, 700 teams, 100 stadiums and 30 leagues.
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