I think the Bombcast may have touched on this, however it appears that EA may no longer use the "FIFA" name in its football games going forward.

FIFA has stated that it is changing its licensing agreements, to allow more opportunities for multiple publishers to give them money, instead of only EA. Okay, I embellished that last part of that statement, but you get the gist. FIFA has also said that it is concerned with EA's monopoly in the field of football video games.

EA has supposedly filed a trademark to rename their popular football game, "EA Sports FC". There has also been reports that FIFA is asking double for EA to re-new its licensing deal, as it expires in 2022. Reports are saying that FIFA wants $1 billion USD for a 4 year contract. Also, from what I understand, EA has agreements with individual clubs and players, so they could still have real clubs and players in their games.

Long time FIFA and/or football fans, what is your take on this?

It makes sense for EA to do this. There's hardly a danger that the audience won't find their way to their next game , given that it's the only big real time football game out there with a pricetag attached to it. And there's hardly any value to the Fifa licence when the players licences are all arranged through the player organisation FIFPRO. The Fifa licence gives you the Worldcup and the Confederations Cup. Pretty sure that those aspects are not the focus of EA's game anyways. They can do without.

I almost expect FIFA getting nervous now that it seems like they're not going to get a piece of the action at all, and hope that EA accepts the previous pricepoint.

I think my take on this is "a plague on both their houses." FIFA's probably just upset they haven't been cut in on the loot boxes "surprise mechanics."

Personally, I think they should be forced to work together. EA and FIFA richly deserve one another. In the meantime, I'll stick with Football Manager.

@onemanarmyy:

I would have to agree that it is mostly upsides for EA.

Also at this point, is Konami even interested in getting that license? While they have always played second fiddle to EA in terms of sales, does adding "FIFA" to their name really change much for them? I am guessing Konami would have to pay something similar to EA to do that. I just can't see them doing that, but what do I know?

Also, who would be the other potential developers for a "FIFA" game? 2K? I can't think of anyone else of the top of my head.

@therealturk:

As with Konami, if Sega can keep selling Football Manager without a FIFA tie-in, then I would say EA has nothing to worry about.

Further, does Sega gain anything significant if they buy the rights to put "FIFA" in their games? My guess is, probably not.

@wardcleaver:Nah i doubt there's any value to the FIFA licence beyond the immediate name recognition it brings. FIFA clearly thinks it's a very valuable licence, but we've been seeing time and time again that gamers care about the players & the clubs, not whether the worldcup is officially licenced. If Konami wants to make a move, they will approach more clubs and players like they've been doing the last few years. Like right now they only have 9 teams available and a handful of MLS players apparently. Trying to bring more clubs in the fold is probably more effective than going for the FIFA licence.

I think Football manager doesn't have the licence to 'UEFA Champions League'... but they are still letting these clubs meet up internationally in the 'Champions Cup' or something like that. The idea of letting clubs / nations compete internationally is not something that can be restricted. So all that's left for the licence is getting access to the WorldCup naming, branding and trophy.

The ONLY way i can see a dev go for the Fifa licence at this price, is when a hostnation like Qatar decides that their tournament should be a 360 multimedia experience and come with it's own game and throws money at a dev to make it happen.

I don't think the license does Konami any good with eFootball where it's at.

I'm hardy an expert, but I would think over and above FIFA, the branding you want is the English Premier League. All I know is when people talk about Football around the world they are always interested in Premier League. People in China and Dubi want to see Manchester, Arsenal, or Liverpool - or so it seems.

Likely someone in the UK, Spain or Italy could explain what the best branding would be for a broad audiences. While FIFA I think has a world-wide reach to cover every country around the world, the English Premier League has the most pull of eyeballs to screens.

The debacle of the European Super League this summer seemed to have been a huge deal too, so maybe none of teh leagues are in great standing with the fans. Again, I don't think I know enough to say if no FIFA on the box matters.

This is what happens when Peter Moore leaves both EA and soccer.

I can see us getting FIFA World Cup games tied with this new biannual planned World Cup.

I heard EA's forced their subsidiaries to add many free to play elements to their distributed games which causes their customers to be unsatisfied.

How would this affect the naming of whatever game ends up with the FIFA license? Would another publisher be able to call their FIFA-licensed game "FIFA" or does EA retain some sort of copyright that nukes the FIFA name for everyone?

@peezmachine: Sounds like a trademark is valid for 10 years in the EU. It lapses when it's no longer in active use by the registrar. I don't know for sure, but i assume that this 'check' only happens when you want to renew the trademark. Up till that point, EA probably gets to defend their trademark even if it's no longer in use. I bet it'll take quite some years before we'll see a different dev be able to use FIFA as a name for their game.

(Note, i could be completely wrong on all of this, but if that's the case, the true experts will be greatly annoyed by it and feel compelled to fix the damage i've done ^_^ )

Okay forget all of that.

Edit: I've been checking EA's EU Trademarks and between their games there's no mention of FIFA whatsoever.. Which might mean that the registrar of FIFA as a game might actually be FIFA too? I assumed that it would be a case where the same trademark can be filed in different industries by different registrars because it doesn't appear misleading (Apple in the computerbiz & Johnny's Apple as a grocerer is both fine). But in this case it seems to me like Fifa is the original registrar of the FIFA trademark and can just let another dev make a game for them anytime they want.