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Major Soccer Clubs Stick With EA Following FIFA Split (IGN)

kingfey

Banned

EA and FIFA are parting ways, but EA will continue to make soccer/football games under the new name EA Sports FC. And the world’s biggest clubs are already lining up to join the new franchise, even without the FIFA branding.

Starting in 2023, EA’s official soccer sims will be released under the name EA Sports FC. But other than official FIFA World Cup content, EA is promising access to the same players, clubs, stadiums, and leagues FIFA is known for.

EA has already revealed that it has signed agreements with the world’s top clubs and leagues including the Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, and UEFA for team licenses. And on social media, the world’s top football clubs have revealed their support for EA Sports FC.

Top teams from across the world and in various different leagues like the Premier League and MLS have shared tweets that say “We’re in the Club” with the hashtag #EASPORTSFC, signaling their intent to sign up with EA’s renamed franchise.

The two teams competing in the upcoming Champions League Final, Real Madrid C.F. of La Liga and Liverpool FC of the Premier League both tweeted in support of EA Sports FC, as have many other top teams.










EA says that losing the FIFA license frees up the company from certain creative restrictions. EA is now open to allowing more creative content into its soccer sim as well as potential commercial partnerships beyond just the core football experience.

FIFA, for its part, announced plans to work with other third-party developers on new games that will use the FIFA license with plans in place for new, non-sim games this year.

FIFA 23 will be the last EA soccer-sim released under the licensing agreement and will only cover the soccer-sim aspect of the game. But it seems EA has a stable of top names ready to work alongside the rebranded EA Sports FC.
 

kingfey

Banned
A Arsenal is not here.
sad arrested development GIF
 

yansolo

Member
i hope this means another developer can have a crack at making a football game with the fifa license, ea's fifa games have been rubbish for years
 

Helghan

Member
FIFA is delusional, their response to all of this was:
“I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans. The FIFA name is the only global, original title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25, and FIFA 26, and so on — the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain the best.”
 

Calverz

Member
Hahahahha I’m loving the demise of this. I’m supporting fifa on this. I want to see the multiple things they have planned going forward. The football game market needed a big shakeup like this.
 

Robb

Gold Member
It’ll be interesting to see what the difference will be in the final product. If there’s no major difference but the name “FIFA” ditching them definitely seem to be the correct choice.
 
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I wonder if FIFA knows that there is no longer anyone making a soccer sim game because of the decades of EA having the FIFA license.

Who the fuck are they going to get to make an official FIFA game now? Konami? LMAO

This is why the NFL aren't stupid and just let EA have the Madden NFL franchise. Who else is going to make an NFL game now?
 
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supernova8

Banned
I wonder what ends up happening with the license. I've heard people say "oh PES is better it just doesn't have default access to the licenses" but let's be honest (ignoring the licensing thing) PES is only better for single player. I've always found the online (seasons) mode in FIFA (I fucking hate Ultimate Team) to be way better than what PES has.

It would be cool if the PES studio could split off from Konami since it only seems to really care about mobile games these days.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
FIFA is nothing, except for a tournament every 4 years. If you have all the clubs, competitions etc licensed, there is nothing gone. Just the name on the box. But I figure EA's the only football game around anyway. Unless you count current F2P PES.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
FIFA has no control over club teams, those licenses are separate. So I don't really know what "sticking with" means here. Why would they leave EA for... what?
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
FIFA is fighting an uphill battle. Not only will they need to get a developer on board to create they're own football game, but they'll also need to get a majority of major leagues and clubs on board as well.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
If this schism had happened shortly after Codemaster's club football failed to achieve what EA is now planning EA would have held all the footy development power having just acquired Renderware - other than konami/sega - because middleware and console hardware weren't in a place where a popup studio could be making a footy game that plays better than Fifa in a short time frame.

Today, between ProZone stats, Unreal and Unity licensing and things like metahuman someone just needs a team and money to get such a game ready in 2years to be good enough to damage EA SPORT FC's chances IMO.

If necessary I suspect Sega can fill the void with a newer AM2 Virtua Striker effort- much like their experience of doing the Winter Olympics, and Mario/Sonic at the Olympics with Nintendo - and may even do a second joint effort with Sega for mario/Sonic at the world cup using Mario Strikers. On the mobile side they'll possibly pay to reskin Sensible World of Soccer - like a return to Fifa USA 94 on the Snes.

There's every possibility that Fifa might license the name on a per platform basis, meaning thta PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and Mobile will all have different developers/publishers making unique games. :pie_thinking: A return to gamers possibly buying multiple games a year across different platforms with the Fifa branding.

Let's face it, on Switch Fifa could get Techmo to port their old arcade Italia 90 World Cup game - the one that got an unofficial UEFA Cup mod for arcades with Barcelona, etc - and reskin and probably have a very satisfied 20m switch players.
 

oldergamer

Member
I wonder if FIFA knows that there is no longer anyone making a soccer sim game because of the decades of EA having the FIFA license.

Who the fuck are they going to get to make an official FIFA game now? Konami? LMAO

This is why the NFL aren't stupid and just let EA have the Madden NFL franchise. Who else is going to make an NFL game now?
No other company will be capable of paying the price asked for the fifa license. Fifa could develop thier own game much like how mlb has done that, however trying to compete with years of development is an uphill battle.

Nfl is allowing others to make football games as of this year. They realized to exclusive deal made madden stagnant
 

Azurro

Banned
Hahahahha I’m loving the demise of this. I’m supporting fifa on this. I want to see the multiple things they have planned going forward. The football game market needed a big shakeup like this.

There are no other developers making a competent football game and FIFA wanted like 2 billion for the license, it is one of the most stupid things they could have done.
 

Porcile

Member
Thank fucking god Toronto FC and Austin FC are in the club. What would a football game be without those behemoths of history.
 
I specifically said PES from 4 years ago not this year's garbage F2P game.
It's so criminal what happened to PES. Konami had such a strong upward trajectory from like 2015-2019 and then decided to just be greedy and absolutely fuck the series. Fuck 'em.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Unless FIFA has Konami to pick up the slack, or they got some secret dev making a good soccer game and take on the FIFA branding for 23, 24, 25.... FIFA has nothing.

How are they going to have the "best" game when there might not even be any game? lol
 

FeldMonster

Member
Football clubs will follow the money...

BTW, stop using that stupid name "soccer". It's called Football... you know, a actual sport where most of the time you actually play with your feet.
Always blows my mind that soccer fans have no idea of the history of the sport they profess to love.

The name "football" was originally for any sport played ON FOOT, to differentiate them from games played on horseback. Hence Rugby Football vs. Association (Soccer) Football. Just because modern slang has truncated the terms doesn't magically make the correct terminology wrong.
 

Calverz

Member
There are no other developers making a competent football game and FIFA wanted like 2 billion for the license, it is one of the most stupid things they could have done.
Wrong. One of the smartest. Fuck the fifa series. It’s long been a copy and paste job and frankly I’m sick of the monopoly it has had on the football market.
 
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