The current deal, which was to end after this year's World Cup in Qatar, has been adjusted to run through to the Women's World Cup next summer. Once that tournament is over, the company said, 150 million FIFA video game players will have to get used to a new name for the series : EA Sports FC.
The game itself will not change much. Most of the world to famous clubs and stars will be playable because of separate licensing deals with their team and leagues, even though the World Cup itself and other FIFA controlled events will no longer be included. Still, the continuation of the game does not alter the seismic nature of the rebranding.
To a million of people around the world, the letters FIFA represent not actual soccer, but instead a one word shorthand for a video game series the grew to provide the backdrop to the lives of players as diverse as Premium League pros and Casual Fans. Even a gamer With no other relationship to the sport came to know its stars and its teams through their digital doppelgangers.
The sort of broad we created a lucrative partnership for both EA sports and FIFA : The game has generated more than $20 billion in sales over the past two decades.
But the writing had been on the wall for a split for months. While the dispute was undoubtedly rooted in part to differing financial expectation - FIFA was seeking to at least double the $150 millions it gets annually from EA sports, its biggest commercial partner, it also quickly became clear there were different expectations of what should be included in a new agreement.
The more recent deal was signed 10 years ago, but the intervening years had been marked not only by great technological change but arguably even greater upheaval at FIFA, which almost collapsed after a major corruption scandal in 2015. FIFA's new leaders, Gianni Infantino, has tried and often failed to unlock a new revenue stream.
When even direct talks between Infantile and Andrew Wilson, the Electric Arts Chief executive, failed to yield a break through, the sides agreed to an amicable separation, Wilson said.
It was really about how can we do more for the players, more for the fans, how can we can offer them more modalities to play, how can we bring more partners into the game, how can we expand beyond the bounds of the traditional game Wilson, whose personal association as an engineer of the game dates back two decades, said in a Telephone Interview.
For FIFA, a break with EA Sports, and the loss of its nine figure licensing payments, represents a risk for Infantile, who last month announced he would run for a third term as president and after he has promised ever larger handouts to the 211 soccer federations that vote in the election complicating matters, too, has been the churn in FIFA's commercial department. Kay Martin, hired with much fanfare last summer, departed last month after less than a year in the post, having become the third head of commercial to leave since infantile was elector president in 2016.
For now, FIFA's focus in on the Qatar World Cup. The same is true at EA sports, with Wilson promising the last release of FIFA, the game in September will be its biggest yet. He also said he helped it would not be the but World Cup in an EA sports produced game, offering an olive branch by insisting a separated with FIFA still could be made.
We'd love to continue to represent the World Cup through the game, he said.
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