For the past 30 years, soccer fans and gamers have been able to buy an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) FIFA soccer game. Next year, that will change.
What Happened: FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football, is the world’s governing body for soccer (which is called football in most parts of the world).
FIFA owns the licensing rights to nearly all the biggest clubs and national soccer teams in the world. In the past, EA would pay FIFA a certain amount of money to license the rights of different clubs and players for the video game.
"We're thankful for our many years of great partnership with FIFA," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said. "The future of global football is very bright, and fandom around the world has never been stronger. We have an incredible opportunity to put EA SPORTS FC at the heart of the sport, and to bring even more innovative and authentic experiences to the growing football audience."
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What's Next: You are able to play with Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United on the FIFA video game because EA pays FIFA to use the likeness and names of the players in the game. So now, EA will have to make do without the names and images of popular players, something the company has experience with.
For many years, EA produced NCAA Football games, and because of the rules and regulations surrounding college sports, the video game did not feature players' names. But, for fans of the sport, it was pretty easy to identify the nameless characters. If you are playing with a quarterback on University of Texas with #10 on his jersey in NCAA Football 2005, it’s no secret that it’s Vince Young.
EA will most likely try to recreate this with EA Sports FC, the soccer game the company plans to release instead of FIFA next year. Whether there is a big difference between FIFA and EA Sports FC has yet to be determined, but this announcement is certainly the end of an era.
