The_Pink_Tiger wrote on Jul 17, 2024, 21:16:
On the other hand, for all that it's a scummy, immoral organization, the FIFA brand is very powerful, and being able to play with actual teams and players is a huge part of fantasy footie. Lacking the association with FIFA (even if EA does manage to wrangle a few teams, stadiums and players) is going to greatly diminish the value of the game.

I have never really been a FIFA player and footie has gone on my shitlist many moons ago when the FIFA/UEFA took it too far with the scummy and immoral stuff. I basically bailed out around the time of the Sepp Blatter corruption scandal, the refusal to withdraw the world cup from Russia in spite of the invasion of Ukraine/Crimea and when fucking Qatar was announced as the site of the 2020 WC, killing hundreds of worker slaves in the process of building up the infrastructure so the sheiks could have their panem et circenses. Fuck all of that shit.

Anyway, it was my impression that EA only did not license the 'FIFA' brand per se, no? According to here they still seem to have quite a bit more than just a "few" teams, stadiums and players as per your claim.

Football plays the world's game! Experience unrivalled authenticity in EA SPORTS FC™ 25 with the most true-to-life experience of football’s biggest competitions, clubs and stars, with 19,000+ players across 700+ teams in more than 120 stadiums and over 30 leagues.

There are also more details on that page with regard to every league and it sure sounds to me like they have all the most interesting leagues/competitions fully covered including some historical soccer stars...

Jude Bellingham. Aitana Bonmati. Zinedine Zidane. David Beckham. Gianluigi Buffon. The biggest football stars, past and present, play For the Club. Hit the pitch as any one of over 19,000 fully licensed players from across men's and women's football in EA SPORTS FC™ 25, supported by the long-term partnership between EA SPORTS and FIFPRO – the global representative for professional football players.

^ I mean, what more could the FIFA fans ask for? And I don't think that any even more comprehensive licensing to another publisher is going to happen any time soon because no one (except someone huge like Microsoft) is going to be able to afford it.
It would be way too risky for a newcomer who would likely end up spending nearly a billion or maybe even a billion+ on licensing, development and especially marketing to let everyone know that EA's FC now has a competitor.

EA New casino is out. The whole sport industries have a virtual casino running from behind. Either it is running by gov, casino (example Las Vegas), software companies like EA or underground. It is not only for FIFA, it is for EVERY sport in planet Earth.

The_Pink_Tiger wrote on Jul 17, 2024, 21:16:
I really wonder how EA's new strategy will play out.

On the one hand, sportsball fans are fanatic about their video-games. There's a reason that FIFA and Madden are some of the biggest sources of revenue for EA. The people who play those games really love those games, and are not only happy to keep buying it year-after-year, but will pay through the nose for all the micro-transactions EA sells alongside those games.

On the other hand, for all that it's a scummy, immoral organization, the FIFA brand is very powerful, and being able to play with actual teams and players is a huge part of fantasy footie. Lacking the association with FIFA (even if EA does manage to wrangle a few teams, stadiums and players) is going to greatly diminish the value of the game.

Freeing themselves from the expense of licensing the FIFA brand will save EA a bundle, sure. But will it outweigh the revenue lost by disappointed players? And when FIFA finally licenses their name to some other publisher, will EA be able to compete? It will be interesting to see.

I think they'll be fine. As of January, it had sold slightly fewer copies and made more money overall than FIFA23 had in the same timeframe so I'd say the rebrand has been extremely successful. Goodness knows when/if FIFA will return as a football game, and whether or not another studio can compete on quality rather than becoming a laughing stock like PES/eFootball did.

Not that FIFA/FC is perfect, far far far from it. EA have a massive head start in graphics and animation but a fresh approach could result in actual gameplay that is more enjoyable and if they nail that, they can get by on worse graphics for a couple of iterations.

I really wonder how EA's new strategy will play out.

On the one hand, sportsball fans are fanatic about their video-games. There's a reason that FIFA and Madden are some of the biggest sources of revenue for EA. The people who play those games really love those games, and are not only happy to keep buying it year-after-year, but will pay through the nose for all the micro-transactions EA sells alongside those games.

On the other hand, for all that it's a scummy, immoral organization, the FIFA brand is very powerful, and being able to play with actual teams and players is a huge part of fantasy footie. Lacking the association with FIFA (even if EA does manage to wrangle a few teams, stadiums and players) is going to greatly diminish the value of the game.

Freeing themselves from the expense of licensing the FIFA brand will save EA a bundle, sure. But will it outweigh the revenue lost by disappointed players? And when FIFA finally licenses their name to some other publisher, will EA be able to compete? It will be interesting to see.