EA’s FIFA series is by far the biggest football game on the planet. It is also extremely profitable for Electronic Arts, the world’s second-biggest gaming company by market capitalization.
For the 2021 financial year, EA made an astonishing $1.62 billion from its sports games’ Ultimate Team modes, but a “substantial portion” came from FIFA’s iteration.
To many gamers, FIFA - which stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association and is the name of the Swiss-headquartered governing body for association football - is basically shorthand for EA’s soccer game.
But this could change after EA and FIFA have come to prickly business dealings. In short, FIFA wants more money (especially, perhaps, after seeing those earnings posted by EA).
With the current ten-year licensing agreement ending following the 2022 World Cup, FIFA is reportedly looking for $1 billion every four years. EA has expressed disdain for this asking price and has gone so far as to consider renaming the veteran series.
Hitting back in an official statement FIFA has said it believes “more than one party” should control and exploit all rights, without explicitly referring to EA Sports as the sole beneficiary of those rights. “Technology and mobile companies are now actively competing to be associated with FIFA, its platforms, and global tournaments,” the statement says.
"Consequently, FIFA is engaging with various industry players, including developers, investors, and analysts, to build out a long-term view of the gaming, eSports, and interactive entertainment sector."
So who’s going to win? Will FIFA successfully negotiate for more money from EA, or will EA be happy to walk away from FIFA, leaving behind an association that has been beneficial for the Redwood giant since 1993’s FIFA International Soccer for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive?
“FIFA doesn’t hold all the cards,” says George Jijiashvili, a principal analyst covering games at market research firm Omdia. “EA is in such a strong market leading position, having built up this franchise for over a decade. It has an established and loyal player base, who would continue to play the game no matter what it was called. The crux of it all is that the actual ‘FIFA’ license provides very little to the game maker.”
Jijiashvili points out EA has accumulated many licenses over the years with individual sports teams, meaning it can use, for example, official Manchester United team kits, stadiums, and likenesses.
The FIFA brand, meanwhile, is a brand name, and which allows for the use of FIFA’s World Cup and not a whole lot else.
“These brands have to acknowledge games [and their popularity]. They can’t underestimate the power of the developers,” says Jijiashvili.
EA remains the world’s most popular football game developer, with Konami and its eFootball (formerly PES) being a distant second.
Overall, this tussle has shown that licensing in gaming is very complex. As the games market expands, however, especially on mobile, Jijiashvili believes there will be more opportunities for FIFA.
“One example is to look to the mobile market,” he explains. “Take-Two recently acquired Nordeus, maker of [the] Top Eleven football management game. [This] suggests that this category will heat up.”
Time will tell if we’ll be playing EA’s FIFA in the near future or a football game by another name, but we can be fairly sure that players will still be playing.