EA Sports and FIFA parting ways has been the talk of the town for an entire season, which isn’t surprising – they’ve been partners for 30 years. This will have a massive impact on the entire gaming industry, and sports in general. EA Sports FC is set to be the first post-FIFA soccer game from the publisher, kicking off an entirely new brand, similar to what happened only last year to Konami and eFootball – PES’ heir.
But how will that impact the entire soccer gaming landscape? We’ve asked Konami just that, as it is still busy catching up with its long-running competitor after the much-debated IP change.
“If you objectively look at the football simulation category landscape, now you have a perfect storm for new entrants,” David Monk, senior partnerships and activations manager at eFootball, Konami, tells GLHF.
“You have increased consumer capabilities in mobile gaming, and obviously, with console gaming, it’s more accessible, with the new generation of consoles coming out and these new technology bases available to users, as well as Android.
“Also, a lot more free-to-play games have come out in the non-football simulation category. So you look at all those ingredients everywhere – it’s the perfect storm for new publishers and new developers to enter into the simulation category.”
It’s clear that Konami won’t be considering, for example, coming back to retail, premium releases, should EA Sports stick to that model and prove successful again – or any other temptation after eFootball’s troubled start.
At the same time, the Silent Hill publisher knows that the soccer simulation category will soon be much more crowded – UFL is releasing in 2023, Goals is currently in development, and perhaps there’s even more on the horizon.
Of course, everyone is looking at what FIFA will be doing after parting ways with EA Sports, and launching a few World Cup initiatives – four games, including metaverse and NFTs, to start with. One of the biggest names the internet discourse keeps calling out as a possible FIFA partner for the future is 2K Sports, the label behind the most popular NBA and PGA games, but the company has debunked any rumor on that front, so far.
Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.
