The fact that EA pulled a different air at home has been known for some time, but now the official has arrived: after FIFA 23 EA’s videogame series will change its name to EA Sport FC. However, this is not the only novelty, given that there have been official statements by the FIFA president Gianni Infantino that have greatly shaken the world of video games. Net of the information we have, the future of football looks pretty rosy, but let’s try to understand in which direction we are going.
The future after FIFA 23
Let’s start from the beginning, since the reasons for the separation between EA and FIFA are quite well known. On the part of the federation there is the clear admission that the real FIFA will be the one that will bear the same name in the title, but not only, given that the final goal is to offer players, partners and associations, a series of options that will be able to please as many fans as possible. On the part of Electronic Arts, on the other hand, the words are very different: the CEO of EA Sports, in fact, expressed himself by saying that the team made this decision for offer its users an ultimate gaming experiencewhich they couldn’t do in the past due to some restrictions owed by FIFA.
Regardless of the view of the parties, the common point was that FIFA had been playing for too long suffering in terms of Announcements. In a landscape like that of video games in constant change, the EA series it showed no concrete signs of improvement, and has never been able to take that step forward it would need. Just take, for example, other sports games such as the NBA 2K series, which manages to improve from time to time and still meet higher standards than its football counterpart. In the market too Konami at this point limps, with its title still groping in the dark even after the recent update. An outsider might be the new UFL, but it’s still too early for him.
Licensing issue
FIFA stated that the licenses they will not be managed exclusively, what does this mean? Regardless of who will make the official game, other development studios can access the licenses. It cannot be excluded that now 2K goes knocking on the door of the federation, whose interest had already been rumored in the past. Furthermore, other types of securities could emerge, and if on the one hand it could be good, from another point of view this proposal shows the side to some critical issues. The greatest risk is that of splitting users too much, without giving a clarity of the contents.
Furthermore, a more thorny question is what will happen under the profile of some specific licenses. In fact, after the announcement of the name change, Electronic Arts was keen to confirm that the agreements who have brought clubs, leagues, players and brands into their series they were taken with the Californian company, the latter will be able to continue to exploit these situations regardless of the name of the game. It will therefore be necessary to understand to what extent these agreements are binding, given that between EA Sport FC, eFootball PES, UFL and other possible competitors, we risk seeing many high-level games but with divided licenses, this translates, as already seen in the past, in unofficial t-shirts, coats of arms and invented names and so much more.
What we know about FIFA 23
FIFA 23 will be a sort of swan song of the series, the title with the most content made by the team. From what was communicated by the publisher himself the game will include even more modes, features, teams, championships, players And competitions of any previous edition. These statements were accompanied by the news that in FIFA 23 there will also be licenses dedicated to the Qatar 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Women’s Soccer World Cup, which as it is known will be staged in New Zealand and Australia in the summer of ‘ next year. To carry out this event, a short-term license extension was requested and approved in favor of EA.
Despite these premises, the feeling is the one that FIFA 23 really is under the profile only of playful structure it will be a kind of more of the samealthough we are hoping for some small improvements. Also on the Ultimate Team front there are no big news, and if history teaches the greatest upheavals could be given precisely by the world championship version of the title. The same FUT by now, despite the continuous very high numbers recorded, was starting to accumulate more and more discontent from the community, we hope that EA Sport FC can bring some fresh air in this respect as well.
The future now it is more than ever uncertain: for too long, in fact, football games have not been able to express themselves at great levels. Although the improvements over the years, by now all experiences had the bitter taste of “already seen”. The general feeling, however, is that most companies, which intend to work long-term with FIFA licenses, they may seriously consider adopting a free-to-play policya path already started by eFootball and UFL, or who knows, even a GaaS.
