Just a “quick post” since Electronic Arts officially announced that their famed FIFA Series will no longer exist. In its place from July 2023, we will have EA SPORTS FC. In a move that doesn’t surprise anyone considering all the talk last year about ending their relationship with FIFA, I am surprised they went the route of such a generic name.
Little Information at this time
The blog post which went live earlier on Tuesday is light on details. Considering this is a change happening 14 months from now, it serves as nothing more than a teaser for what people can expect. They use this opportunity to highlight their current partnerships with leagues like the Premier League, LaLiga, the Bundesliga, and others. Meant to force the notion that there is more to the sport than just FIFA.
They also try to drive home the fact that being ‘independent’ will allow them to “innovate, create and evolve”, which doesn’t mean anything on paper. I don’t believe they couldn’t do those before, so what exactly does that mean moving forward? They are still working with FIFA for one more year, so we know we’re still getting a FIFA 23 later this year.
We also can safely assume that FIFA 23 will focus heavily on the World Cup. The Nov/Dec time frame for the 2022 FIFA World Cup lines up perfectly for EA to do big on the tournament, especially if this could be the last year they develop a title around it (that’s not to say that FIFA could approach EA in the future to make a World Cup-specific game every four years).
It will take time to adjust
I have to assume the only reason to get this far ahead of the name change is so that people can try to get more accustomed to the name. EA has used EA SPORTS Football Club for over a decade. Older games had a separate mode called EASFC where you could share match results with friends and unlock additional in-game content. I still have two t-shirts from my days at EA that feature the logo, which I wore during some promotional work.
When the rumors were spreading that EA was going in a different direction with their soccer/football games, I thought they go with a different name. EA SPORTS FC feels ways too generic, and it’s not a localization-friendly term. The promotional photo shows different fonts for FC, but they also include CF. Does that mean they’ll call it EA SPORTS CF in Spain? What about languages where FC doesn’t work?
I’m hopeful the name changes. While I don’t hate it, the generic naming structure doesn’t feel like something you’d expect from a multi-billion dollar company. They may do a subtitle but if they are talking about independence, then having another league in the title probably wouldn’t work. It’s more likely they’d feature a player name, maybe “Lionel Messi’s EA SPORTS FC”?
Lastly, could this mean that potentially yearly titles are gone? Perhaps the restrictions they have with FIFA was the need to constantly release a new game every year. If that’s the case, EA SPORTS FC doesn’t need to have a year associated with it. They will finally go the live-services route and just update the game each season with new content, removing older stuff when licenses expire. Considering eFootball is going this route, this makes a lot of sense.
More time to speculate around EA SPORTS FC
So, over the next year, we’ll have time to speculate and slowly learn more about EA SPORTS FC. Now that I’ve mentioned it, I strongly believe we’re going to get one game that updates over the next few years. It also feels that FIFA 23 could be a bit light on content so that more resources are spent prepping EASFC.
The teaser image features women’s clubs, so does that mean we’re getting those leagues next year? Lastly, I suspect EA is going to try their hardest to reinforce the new name any chance they can. EA SPORTS FIFA has been around for nearly 30 years, so getting people off that name will take time. I wish all those who currently work on their football games the best of luck, marketing is going to be working overtime.