Life after FIFA: The birth of EA Sports FC and its mission to find 1bn fans
Back in 1993, EA's European office had obtained the FIFA license.
The group had managed, eventually, to persuade their parent company to let them make a football game. EA was a US-centric business at the time and football had collapsed in the country, so the publisher was hesistant. In the end, the project was greenlit, with a small team in Canada tasked with making the game.
The creation of FIFA is a remarkable trans-Atlantic story, and one for another day. But from there, the series went about transforming the world of sports video games (not to mention music in games, too). It had a fierce battle with Pro Evolution Soccer, it changed things again with the birth of Ultimate Team, and it has firmly established itself as the biggest game in most countries worldwide.
But that is all about to end. Starting today, the FIFA video game is no more. EA Sports FC is the new face on shelves. But EA tells us that this new entity will continue the legacy of what came before.
"It's a journey that started back in April where we revealed our new logo," says James Salmon, senior marketing director for EA Sports.
"We revealed FC24 in Amsterdam, and I was reminded when I was there of a poignant quote from Johan Cruyff, where he said: 'to accomplish things, you have to do it together.' And we've been in the most privileged position that all of our 300-plus partners across the world of football have united with us as we've guided through this transition.
"It was critical we ensured that fans understood what FC represents, and also those partners understand that as well, which is the experience that they know and love is still going to have all the same values that we've had historically."
Those values are three-fold. First, there's
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