Loading player From next year the FIFA football video game series, the most famous and popular in the world, will change its name after almost thirty years: after FIFA 23, which will be released in the summer of this year, the series will abandon the FIFA name and will be called EA SPORTS FC. The company that produces the video game, the American Electronic Arts (which uses the name EA Sports for sports video games), has in fact decided not to renew the license agreement with FIFA, the federation that governs all world football competitions, and therefore he will no longer be able to use its name.
The possible break between EA Sports and FIFA had been discussed for several months: last October the New York Times had reported an indiscretion, citing sources with knowledge of the facts, according to which FIFA had requested 1 billion dollars from Electronic Arts (about 950 million euros) to renew the license and grant the use of the name of the federation for four years.
The latest contract signed between Electronic Arts and FIFA provided for the payment of 150 million dollars a year (140 million euros), and Electronic Arts would have refused to accept the large increase in licensing costs proposed by FIFA. Even then it was said that Electronic Arts could continue without using the FIFA name anymore, so much so that, shortly before the New York Times article was published, it had already registered the “EA SPORTS FC” trademark.
On Tuesday 10 May, in formalizing the name change, Electronic Arts said that the new EA SPORTS FC video games will retain all the main features of the old FIFA (including Ultimate Team, Career, Pro Club and VOLTA Football modes) and partnerships. exclusive to the main leagues in the world (Premier League, Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A, among others).
«We are incredibly excited to build the future of global football with all of you and will be happy to share more information about EA SPORTS FC over the course of Summer 2023. The future of the sport is great and bright, and the community of football fans is is expanding to every corner of the world. Global football has been part of EA SPORTS for almost thirty years, and today, we are making sure that it will continue to be so for decades to come, “reads the company's statement.
Electronic Arts had made the first video game in the FIFA series in 1993 (it was called FIFA International Soccer at the time) and subsequently went on to produce one a year. For a long time the games of the FIFA series had contended for the primacy of the best sellers with those of the Pro Evolution Soccer series, produced by the Japanese company Konami. In the last ten years, however, this had not managed to keep up with Electronic Arts in technological investments, and for fans of FIFA football video games it had become the best on the market.
– Read also: How did footballers end up in video games?
