However, those games don’t offer the same kind of match simulations that fans of the EA Sports version have come to know. For that, consumers will be asked to wait until 2024, when FIFA says it will launch a rival soccer simulation game.
“I can assure you that the only authentic, real game with the FIFA name is the best for gamers and football fans,” said Gianni Infantino, FIFA President. “The FIFA name” – which he suggested the organization would reclaim for its own game – “is the only global, original title.”
The most recent EA Sports-FIFA deal was signed 10 years ago, but the intervening years have been marked not only by major technological changes but probably even greater turmoil at FIFA, which nearly collapsed after a major corruption scandal in 2015. Infantino , since taking office that year, has tried — and often failed — to unlock new revenue streams.
When even direct talks between Infantino and Andrew Wilson, the director of Electronic Arts, failed to produce a breakthrough, the parties agreed to an amicable separation, Wilson said.
“It was really about how we can do more for the players, more for the fans, how we can give them more modalities to play, how we can bring more partners into the game, how we can go beyond the boundaries of the traditional game. can go. ‘, Wilson, whose personal association as the game’s engineer goes back two decades, said in a telephone interview.
In addition to doubling the license fee, FIFA also demanded the ability to link its brand to other digital products, including other video games, according to people familiar with the talks. That proved a step too far for EA Sports, which now has to persuade legions of devoted fans to get used to a different name.
