EA and its subsidiaries have worked on FIFA football video games since 1993's FIFA International Soccer. However, it appears that this long and lucrative partnership between EA and the association football body, FIFA, is about to come to an end.
Is Electronic Arts going to drop the FIFA branding going forward?
The FIFA video game franchise is one of the most profitable series of all time. EA's long-running video games have seen an annual release for decades, which have made the publisher billions of dollars over the years. The game's 2020 iteration, FIFA 21, played a huge role in EA's full-year revenue of $5.6 billion. Recent estimates suggest that 29% of that $5.6 billion came from FIFA 21's Ultimate Team mode alone.
Unfortunately, it appears that the football body is asking for a larger slice of the pie and EA has no intention of sharing more.
Earlier this week, EA hinted at dropping the FIFA license due to how expensive it is becoming to use. FIFA is reportedly asking EA to pay $2.5 billion over the next 10 years to use the FIFA license in its games. According to New York Times' sources, the $2.5 billion figure is more than double what EA has paid to use the FIFA name in previous years.