EA’s rebranded soccer game isn’t kicking off the same frenzy as FIFA.
For better or worse, when it comes to the financial performance of Electronic Arts, it really is in the game.
EA shares are down sharply in early trading after the video game company slashed its full-year guidance for bookings, citing the underperformance of fantasy role-play game “Dragon Age” and “EA SPORTS FC 25” — the company’s rebrand of what was its crown jewel, the FIFA series, and its 32nd soccer game since 1993.
In its preliminary Q3 results, EA said that net bookings for the full year will now be between $7 billion and $7.15 billion, falling short of the expected $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion it had outlined previously. What this might signal more broadly, though, is that hype around one of the most popular sporting video games of all time — which was also a cash cow for EA — is fading.
For almost three decades, the partnership between soccer’s global governing body and EA saw annual releases of the hugely successful FIFA game series… becoming so ingrained in culture that the name “FIFA” remains, for many, more closely associated with the video game than the governing body of the sport itself.
At its peak, the game posted incredible numbers: all the iterations from FIFA 11 to the final instalment, FIFA 23, shifted millions of units each; FIFA 18 remains one of the bestselling games of all time, having moved 26.4 million copies; and sales of the game brought in more than $20 billion for EA over 20 years, per The New York Times.
However, after FIFA reportedly demanded its payout double to $300 million per year, the two companies ended their deal following the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Since then, EA has pushed on, changing the game’s name to EA FC — which seemed to have paid off with last year’s EA FC 24, listing over 14.5 million active accounts within four weeks of launch. But now, the magic seems to have been lost, with die-hard fans of the series complaining on Reddit, including one user saying, “EA FC 25 is definitely the worst game in history.”
The problem for EA’s business is that selling fewer copies of FC 25 has a knock-on effect. These days, the company’s business model relies on its “Live Services" segment, a broad term encompassing sales of extra content, subscriptions, in-game rewards, and other digital goodies that accounted for over 70% of the company’s revenue in fiscal year 2024. The FIFA/FC series has been a major contributor to that segment.
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