Who'd a thunk it? Electronic Arts, long-time purveyor of FIFA-branded
sports games, has apparently decided to go its own way and is ditching
the FIFA name. * Future games in the franchise will instead be labeled
as "EA Sports Football Club". Despite not having wanting anything to
do with FIFA anymore, the video games will still be licensing the
names of all the various individual football (soccer) teams and
players. Thus, aside from the conspicuous absence of FIFA branding,
from a players perspective very little will change.

This has been brewing for months and months, as EA and FIFA have
jockeyed for better licensing fees (FIFA wants more money, EA wants to
pay less for using the brand). It was suggested back in 2021 that EA
might drop the branding but this was widely seen as a bargaining
maneuver; EA asserting that they could do without the branding and
still be sure of success. It goes to show how powerful video-game
publishers are nowadays, that they can face off with FIFA and expect
to come out victorious. Of course, seeing as how awful both
corporations are, it's really a matter of "whoever wins, we lose".

Headline aside, it's not really a settled matter yet. This news is
based on the announcement of future titles rather than an actual
briefing from EA and/or FIFA. So this could still all be a bargaining
point by EA, a raising of the stakes and an insistence that if FIFA
remains intransigent, they are more than willing to publish without
their partnership. In the face of this news, FIFA may back down and
accept EA's demands, at which point the titles may be changed back. It
will be interesting to see if FIFA blinks first, or - if not - who
they will pass the brand to. There aren't any real competitors to EA's
sports titles these days, after all.

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* https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/03/report-ea-sports-to-finally-move-forward-with-fifa-less-soccer-game/

Until you mentioned this it had just never occurred to me that EA must
be paying FIFA to use their branding.

For the issue at hand, I can see why EA have got to the position of what
do they get out of it. Indeed I'd probably add what have they ever got
out of it as your average football fans views of FIFA aren't exactly
positive. Who can forgot the then president suggesting that to improve
the standing of women's football they should wear tighter clothes.

The use of actual teams and players, that you can see is important as
it's something people can identify with, the use of FIFA - what a waste
of money.

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 09:16:39 +0000, JAB <noway@co.uk> wrote:

>Until you mentioned this it had just never occurred to me that EA must
>be paying FIFA to use their branding.

>For the issue at hand, I can see why EA have got to the position of what
>do they get out of it. Indeed I'd probably add what have they ever got
>out of it as your average football fans views of FIFA aren't exactly
>positive. Who can forgot the then president suggesting that to improve
>the standing of women's football they should wear tighter clothes.

>The use of actual teams and players, that you can see is important as
>it's something people can identify with, the use of FIFA - what a waste
>of money.

I'd guess back when the partnership was originally forged (in 1993!),
it was easier for EA to get their 'foot in the door' with the various
football clubs with the help of FIFA than it was doing it themselves.
For the longest time, video games were seen as small-fry, and
licensing their club's and player's names to a 'fly-by-night'
operation like that carried more risk than potential benefit. FIFA's
blessing probably opened up a lot of doors for them.

Of course, nowadays video-games are an extremely robust industry, and
other companies ignore it at their peril. Not only is attaching your
name to their products an excellent way of marketing, those licenses
are also a lucrative source of money. EA doesn't need FIFA's clout
anymore; the football clubs are quite willing to hear them out without
that governing body's endorsement.

And, of course, EA is quite aware of this, hence their threat to take
the branding off future products. FIFA's own troubles probably make it
easier too; it protects EA from being associated with the scandals and
makes the name change an easier pill to swallow for EA's customers.

Ehn, in the end it doesn't affect me either way. EA's FIFA titles are
too riddled with microtransctions for me to even think about playing
them anymore, even if sports titles were something I was interested in
playing. So I'd be happy if both parties lost out from this kerfuffle
and the dominant publisher of association football games was somebody
else... and they did it without FIFA's involvement too.