EA Sports FC 24, despite an initial, generally acceptable start, has seen a decline in sales since dropping the FIFA name compared to its predecessor.

Since the loss of the FIFA licence for EA’s first football title, physical sales of EA Sports FC 24 have fallen by 30% compared to FIFA 23. FIFA’s entry last year marked the end of the agreement between the game publisher and the international football governing body. It allowed EA to publish games with the FIFA title. This last game was a huge success. This has prompted predictions that FIFA 23 could be the most successful title in the franchise’s history. Now, EA is faced with having to move on without the classic branding.

FIFA 23 may not be one of the best FIFA games ever, but it still set the bar very high for its successor in terms of fan support and sales.

Now that EA Sports FC 24 has been released and the figures are in, it seems that the first in EA’s newly branded series is struggling to match previous FIFA numbers. Although the title is performing well overall, it is significantly behind FIFA 23 in terms of physical disc sales.

As reported by Christopher Dring of GamesIndustry.biz on Twitter, sales of EA Sports FC 24 physical discs are 30% down on FIFA 23. In the same post, Dring admits that EA was expecting a drop in sales due to the name change. But a loss of this magnitude is still a cause for concern for the publisher.

While the loss of the FIFA brand name may have played a role, other reasons may be at play. Disgruntled fans have criticised the game as a critical bombshell. This dramatically reduced the game’s score on various platforms.

As with many titles in EA’s sports franchises, there have been complaints that this new title simply doesn’t do enough to improve gameplay and differentiate itself from previous versions.

At the same time, the Switch version of FC 24 is selling better than FIFA 23. This may be because the last few Switch FIFA games were not new titles but updated rosters and skins. Since FC 24 is indeed a new title for Switch, Nintendo fans have pounced. This supports the idea that poor sales on other platforms are due to a lack of changes to the series rather than the loss of the FIFA name.

There will be new FIFA games in the future without EA. Thus, the publisher would undoubtedly like to establish the FC series as the true successor to FIFA. However, this drop in sales does not seem to be the best start.

Source: X

Physical launch sales of EA Sports FC in the UK are down 30% over last year’s FIFA 23. EA had expected some short-term impact as a result of the rebrand

— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) October 1, 2023