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EA CEO enters FIFA: ‘Four letters in front of the box’
Last year EA announced that it would be rebranding the long-running FIFA series. Reports at the time suggested that FIFA wanted too much money, EA executives were increasingly aware that games were more important than licensing, and the cherry on top of the cake came when EA trademarked “EA Sports FC”.
EA’s current licensing deal with FIFA means we’ll see FIFA 23 later this year, but otherwise?things look risky, and New report from VGC To quote CEO Andrew Wilson at an internal meeting last November — shortly after the news became public.
“I will be more open…more open than I am to the outside world,” Wilson says“We’ve had a great relationship with FIFA over the past 30+ years. We’ve created billions of dollars in value…that’s huge. We’ve created one of the biggest entertainment properties on the planet. I think– And that can be a bit biased – the FIFA brand means more as a video game than it means as a football governing body.”
Wilson went on to expand on the notion that FIFA matches are more important than football’s governing body FIFA: “Basically, what we get from FIFA in non-World Cup years is the four letters on the front of the box, in a most people Don’t even see the box anymore because they buy the game digitally.”
This is what they call executive-level burns.
One of Wilson’s more jaw-dropping assertions was, “Our players tell us they want to have more of a cultural and commercial brand associated with them in their market, more deeply integrated into the game … a brand like Nike. But because of FIFA’s relationship with Adidas, we couldn’t do that.”
Regardless of what Wilson says, it’s clearly not about the players of the game, it’s about the footballers. They want their sponsorship to be reflected in the game, as do all the non-Adidas sportswear brands that sponsor them: the “normal” player wouldn’t care if the Reebok boots would show up in FIFA, but Reebok sure would.
Wilson went on to say that the FIFA license is preventing EA from doing other things with the game: “Our players are telling us they want more game modes, different things than 11v11 and different types of gameplay. I’ll tell you, It’s a type of fight to get FIFA to recognize what we want to create because they say our license only covers certain categories. Our FIFA license actually prevents us from doing a lot of that. Again, FIFA just The name boxes above, but they block our ability to get into areas that players want.”
The CEO said that FIFA’s approval process is preventing EA from being as dynamic and responsive to the game as it would like it to be. That’s a fair enough point since FIFA has been an effective live service game for years, constantly updated and aligned with whatever happens in the real world of football. “Because of the nature of the approval timeline and the various issues with our FIFA license,” Wilson said, “it’s actually been very difficult and we’ve been going a lot slower than we’d like.”
In the end, EA scoffed at the prospect of building its own brand to replace FIFA. “I have [FIFA president] Just a few weeks ago, Gianni Infantino said, ‘Look, money is one thing: we don’t want to pay more than this license is worth. But it’s not about that, it’s about our ability to deliver games and experiences that fans want in a timely manner. “
Wilson looks forward to the future “We’re able to rebrand our games and take control of the global football ecosystem we’re going to build, and ironically, over time we’re likely to generate more revenue, have more fans, and have more more participation.”
It’s a fun time for a football game. We’re almost certain to see FIFA go into a massive rebranding campaign before the end of the year, with Konami desperately trying to get eFootball into a game-friendly state. There’s also a third game and new entrant UFL, which has been announced as a free-to-play competitor to both, without really elaborating.