Electronic Arts kicks off rebranded football video game with strong demand

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Electronic Arts’ decision to cut ties with Fifa and rebrand one of the world’s most popular video games appeared on Friday to have paid off, with early demand for its flagship football franchise well up on last year. 

The Silicon Valley-based games company, which recently ended its 30-year relationship with football’s world governing body, said that 6.8mn people had paid for pre-release access to EA Sports FC, the new name for what was previously called the Fifa video game series.

The figure marked a 25 per cent increase on pre-release sign-ups for last year’s game, although EA extended the early access window to seven days from three in 2022. 

EA’s partnership with Fifa generated about $150mn a year for the governing body, making the video game its largest commercial deal outside the men’s World Cup. 

Since EA debuted Fifa International Soccer in 1993 on Sega’s Mega Drive, its football franchise has sold hundreds of millions of copies and attracted more than 150mn regular players across platforms. Market researcher GfK ranked it the UK’s top-selling games brand between 1995 and 2022, surpassing Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty, which began in 2003, and Nintendo’s long-running Super Mario and Pokémon games. 

Estimates from Ampere Analysis suggest that EA’s annual net revenue from the football franchise grew from $500mn in fiscal 2010 to more than $2bn in 2020. The consultancy estimates that almost 22mn people played Fifa 23, last year’s release, on Xbox and PlayStation consoles in August.

“It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the rebranding of the Fifa series to EA Sports FC is one of the most important moments in EA’s history,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, analyst at Ampere. “Switching to a new brand brings with it noteworthy commercial risk.” 

Andrew Wilson, EA’s chief executive, said last month that the company had deployed a “giant marketing budget” to ensure gamers knew about the new branding. “We are literally rallying the entire company behind this launch more than we ever have in the 40 years of the company’s history around any launch [and] we feel very good about it,” he told analysts on its fiscal first-quarter earnings call. 

The breach with Fifa will have little impact on the content. This year’s release includes more than 700 teams and 19,000 players across more than 30 leagues, covering both men’s and women’s football. 

Ahead of the launch, EA Sports FC became the title sponsor of La Liga, Spain’s football league, replacing Santander. 

For EA, which would become the largest independent US games company if Microsoft’s $75bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard is completed, the title also represents its shift in focus from PC and console games to developing cross-platform experiences. 

“We’ve got game teams across console, PC and mobile that are all innovating at the very front line to make sure that this is not just a change of symbol, but it is, in fact, a symbol of change,” Wilson said. 

EA chose not to renew its agreement with Fifa after the football organisation sought a significant increase in the fees it received from the game during negotiations last year. 

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has since promised to launch a new football game with Fifa’s own branding, although no details have been released. The Zurich-based body is instead searching for new ways to generate income, such as the revamped Club World Cup in 2025.