When the agelong partnership that EA Sports had with FIFA ended, the former was forced to rebrand its soccer sim and get rid of the FIFA nameplate. Consequently, EA Sports FC was born to replace the FIFA franchise—albeit building on the numbering series of the last game.
According to EA Sports, “more than 11.3 million players worldwide, including through EA Play” tried out the game in the first week of its release. That’s about 1 million more than the number of players that played FIFA 23 during its launch week last year. That number was also a record-breaker for the franchise.
The only difference is that the company did not specify whether last year’s figure included EA Play subscribers who may have played the demo version of the game without purchasing it. The company also revealed that FC Mobile—the smartphone and tablet version of the game—was installed 2.2 million times on its launch day.
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At the time of writing this post on October 10, 2023, FC Mobile has been downloaded over 100 million times. EA Sports FC 24 was released on September 26 and was the first title in the rebranded soccer franchise.
“We’re thrilled to have so many fans jumping into The World’s Game in both EA Sports FC 24 and FC Mobile in just the first few days since launch,” said EA Sports President Cam Weber. “In addition to welcoming back millions of our longtime players, new players in FC 24 are up nearly 20% year over year, showing the excitement of football everywhere to join the Club.”
EA Sports FC 24 numbers did not hit me as a surprise
Sincerely, the numbers of the new game did not hit me like a surprise. Following the split with FIFA, I already know that a lot of gamers will be looking forward to the next EA Sports soccer game to scrutinize what has changed—and what hasn’t.
Also, in trying to sell the new brand, I think EA Sports invested more in marketing. Since the official unveiling of the new game, the company organized livestreams to either talk about how much the engines used for the game (like Frostbite and Hypermotion-V) had evolved.
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When they were not talking about the game engine, they were analyzing different parts of the game. To the best of my knowledge, these livestreams happened more often than it did with the previous games. This marketing strategy seemed to have paid off and was evident in the numbers—especially the 20% increase in the number of new players.
By the way, after severing their partnership with EA Sports, FIFA said they will make their proprietary soccer game that will now likely have the FIFA nameplate. So, in no distant future, the former partners may become business rivals. Interestingly, in a poll that we conducted, many voters believed that FIFA would not stand a chance against EA Sports FC.
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“We are building the world’s biggest football community through EA Sports FC, and we’re just getting started,” Weber said.
It will be interesting to see how that community will hold up when a game from the soccer governing body is released. I wager players will have to choose between brand loyalty if the quality of the two games happens to be at par—and I know FIFA has the money to spend.
EA Sports FC 24 hit the summit of UK retail in its launch week
GfK data shared with GamesIndustry.biz shows that EA Sports FC 24 hit number one on the retail list in its launch week. However, the number of copies sold was 30% lower than FIFA 23 sold in its launch week. However, the anticipation was that a surge in digital sales would make up for the shortfall—and the new figure from the company showed that it did.
Notwithstanding the shortfall, EA Sports FC was 2023’s second-biggest retail launch. It was only toppled by The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Although EA Sports FC 24 recorded a sales decline on different platforms, the numbers for the Nintendo Switch version of the game were slightly up.
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The sales chart for the week ending September 30, 2023, was really interesting with games released long ago like Grand Theft Auto V still sitting rock solid in the top 10. EA Sports FC 24 toppled Mortal Kombat 1 (which was the highest-selling game the previous week) to become the new top seller.
Have you played EA Sports FC 24? Do you think it was significantly better than FIFA 23? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
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