New name, same game
Last Friday saw the worldwide release of FIFA 24… sorry, EA Sports FC 24 — the first title in the video game mega series since developers EA split from soccer’s international governing body, Fifa, in 2022.
Fans of the franchise don’t seem to have taken to FC24 particularly well, rushing to sites like Metacritic, where the title currently has a 2.4 user rating (out of 10), to "review bomb" the game. Players are reportedly disappointed with how similar the game is to previous titles, despite the name change and EA’s pledge that it would mark the start of “a new era”.
Franchise goals
Rebranding the best-selling sports video game series of all time, even after 30 years of success, was always going to be a risk. However, after years of increasingly eye-watering rights deals with Fifa, the most recent of which was worth some $150m a year to the governing body, it became one that, ultimately, EA executives decided was worth it.
Although reviews are mixed, the hype for the game appears to be alive and well. Fans habitually flock to the online livestreaming platform Twitch every September when new Fifa instalments are released. FC24’s release has followed the same pattern too, with 95,700 average concurrent viewers so far in October — whether it can keep that up for the rest of the month, though, remains to be seen.
