When it comes to football-themed video games, the EA Sport-FIFA brand series is definitely a concern among sports fans.
However, the video game produced by Electronic Arts (EA) has been confirmed to have ended its cooperation with the International Football Association (FIFA).
It also marks the end of the cooperation for almost 3 decades between the two giant entities and the video game ‘FIFA23’ will be its final edition.
According to sources, EA has made a new ‘significant offer’ for a period of 8 years to FIFA but the international football body has rejected it.
It is believed that the main reason FIFA rejected the offer was because they did not want all its gaming and efootball rights to be given to 1 publisher only.
According to FIFA, they will launch a new football video game that will be produced by third-party studios and publishers, and confirmed that the FIFA23 edition will be the last series to be released with it.
Following the record, the cooperation contract between EA and FIFA will expire after the Qatar World Cup, and the video game company is planning to expand the FIFA brand to new products including non-fungible tokens (NFT).
On the other hand, the football body between them wants to find a way to increase revenue, about 2 times the $ 150 million it receives annually from EA Sport.
Meanwhile, EA predicted first quarter sales to be below the company’s expectations due to weak sales of the game series after the ban was lifted.
EA shares were seen falling 1.3% during yesterday’s trading session with video game sales seen to plummet as life returned to normal to pre-pandemic levels.
In addition, inflation concerns and the effects of the Ukrainian war also weighed on demand, forcing companies to re -evaluate their prospects.
Data released by Refinitiv IBES shows EA’s latest quarterly forecast for sales of between $ 1.20 billion and $ 1.25 billion from analysts ’projections of $ 1.44 billion.
