It’s this Friday, September 29 that EA SPORTS Football Club 24 is officially released, the latest episode of one of the most popular video games in the world… about the most popular sport in the world. Since 2003, the license has brought in nearly 20 billion dollars for the Californian studio. It must be said that a new episode has been released every year for 30 years. But this is the first to no longer be called “FIFA”.
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Not everything has changed. Not much has changed, really. The graphics have evolved slightly and Electronic Arts (EA) praises its capture technique which, assures the publisher, allows the movements of each player on the field to be reproduced extremely faithfully. But the heart of the game remains the same since the very first FIFA appeared in 16 bits in 1993.
Ultimately, the only thing that really changes is the name. Electronic Arts and Fifa (International Association Football Federation) broke the agreement last year that had bound them for three decades. The game license brought in $15 million a year for Fifa, and the world football governing body tried to increase the bill by demanding $1 billion from Electronics Arts every four years. The Californian studio said no, especially since its deal with Fifa did not include the names of the players or the clubs.
However, it will still be possible to take control of Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi or Mohamed Salah in EA SPORTS FC 24. Their rights are negotiated directly with clubs, national leagues or via the International Federation of Professional Footballers’ Associations (Fifpro), which manages the image rights of more than 60,000 players.