We often see players selling for tens of millions of pounds, and even a select few changing clubs for over £100 million, but in one corner of football, around £1 billion per quarter can be expected for one company. EA Sports’ football series – formerly FIFA but now called EA Sports FC – booked in £1.34 billion in Q3 of 2023 purely from EAS FC24’s in-game microtransactions. Prior to that revenue, the game sells for at least £70.
The series has comfortably quashed its former rivals, namely, PES – which now resides as the free-to-play eFootball that can’t amass even one-fifth of the concurrent PC players of EAS FC24 on Steam. However, when something so popular can almost guarantee earnings, it can hinder the user experience. Luckily for football gamers around the world, healthy competition looks to be on the horizon, which has historically proven to be a boost for football fans.
Competition always brings great results
There are many different ways to interact with football in the digital space that keep fans immersed well outside of the live games. For many, football betting offers another way to interact with the sport and make use of years of knowledge. Competing for the millions of football fans in the UK has led to online sportsbooks massively expanding their markets and ensuring that their odds are competitive even with the most outrageous offers and estimations.
However, online betting goes beyond sports odds. Casino gaming is now integrated into many sportsbooks, and here, the competition for football fans has even opened up a new world of games. In a statement posted on the BonusFinder UK’s site, one platform has emerged as a one-stop gambling site for sports betting and all casino games, while also offering a no-wagering slots bonus.
It’s here that they’ve gone from football odds to football games. There are football slots in Football Penny Roller and Football: Champions Cup, as well as live football table games, like Live Football Card Showdown and Live Football Studio Dice. All of this has come from the heated competition in online gambling and its competitors aiming to win over football fans with bigger and more inventive products.
A proven rival emerges, in theory
Like the above, rivalry between football content makers is only good for fans and the sport. It’s like when Sky and BT went at it in 2015, which saw Premier League clubs net £5.136 billion in shared media rights. Now, according to several strong rumours, there may be a real competitor to EA Sports’ stranglehold on officially licensed, triple-A football video games.
It’s said that, after EA Sports decided not to renew their naming rights deal with FIFA, the governing body shopped around and landed on 2K to develop the next officially-licensed game. It could start, per the reports, with FIFA 2K25 and roll into an official FIFA World Cup 2K26 game. Given their success with NBA 2K and WWE 2K games, 2K are the natural picks for an EA competitor, especially as NBA 2K ousted EA’s NBA Live by 2019.
This season, EA Sports FC 24 didn’t land overly well with critics or fans, getting 75/100 from critics and 2.3/10.0 from users on Metacritic. Some healthy competition would do football gamers around the world a lot of good, and hopefully, that’s what FIFA’s found in 2K.
