It seems like EA isn’t too torn up about possibly losing the FIFA franchise, as CEO Andrew Wilson claims that the brand is holding their football games back. Wilson has been thinking about this for a while, as the CEO said the FIFA franchise is “an impediment” to EA’s football ambitions during an internal meeting back in November.
A lengthy report from VGC states that the CEO feels FIFA restricted EA from doing more with their games, not being able to go beyond the 11v11 system that’s been seen in past games. The CEO went as far as to say that the only value they got from the FIFA license was “four letters on the front of the box.”
EA CEO Claims FIFA Has Been “An Impediment” to Their Football Games
Here’s a quote from Wilson about why EA might be better off without the FIFA license:
“Our players want us to expand into the digital ecosystem more broadly… our fans are telling us they want us to go and participate in that space. Our FIFA licence has actually precluded us from doing a lot of this stuff. Again, FIFA is just the name on the box, but they’ve precluded our ability to be able to branch into the areas that players want.”
Should negotiations fail after this year’s Qatar World Cup, FIFA 23 will be the last game that EA makes with the FIFA license. The New York Times claims that EA wants more to do with the FIFA rights, while the FIFA organization wants to double their payment from EA to $2.5 billion.
Currently, there is no release date for FIFA 23. Fans are predicting that the game will come out around September this year but nothing official has come from EA.
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