Highlights
- EA Sports FC 24, the first soccer title released by EA since losing the FIFA license, is facing a significant 30% drop in physical sales compared to FIFA 23.
- Despite strong overall performance, FC 24 is struggling to match the fan support and sales numbers achieved by its predecessor.
- The drop in sales could be attributed to factors such as the loss of the FIFA branding, negative reviews from disgruntled fans, and a lack of significant gameplay improvements compared to past FIFA games.
In EA’s first release of a soccer title since losing the FIFA license, EA Sports FC 24 is seeing a 30% drop in physical sales compared to FIFA 23. Last year’s FIFA entry marked the end of the deal between the game publisher and the international soccer association which allowed EA to release games featuring the FIFA title. This final game was a major hit, prompting predictions that FIFA 23 could become the most successful title in franchise history Now EA is faced with moving on without the classic branding.
FIFA 23 may not rank among the best FIFA games ever, but it still set a very high bar for its successor in terms of fan support and sales. Now that EA Sports FC 24 is out and data is coming in, it appears that EA’s first entry in the newly branded series is struggling to match past FIFA numbers. While the title is doing well overall, it’s falling significantly short of FIFA 23 in terms of sales of physical discs.
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As reported on Twitter by Christopher Dring of GamesIndustry.biz, the sale of physical discs of EA Sports FC 24 is down 30% compared to FIFA 23. In the same post, Dring acknowledges that EA had been anticipating a drop in sales due to the name change, but a loss this large might still be a cause for concern for the publisher.
While the dropping of the FIFA brand could be a factor, there may be other issues at play here. EA Sports FC 24 has been getting review bombed by disgruntled fans which has dramatically dropped the game’s score on various platforms. Like many titles in EA’s sports franchises, there have also been complaints that this new title simply doesn’t do enough to improve the gameplay and differentiate itself from past iterations.
In another post, Dring pointed out that the Switch version of FC 24 is selling better than FIFA 23. He suggested that this is because recent FIFA games for the Switch were not truly new titles but updated rosters and skins. As FC 24 is actually a new title for the Switch, Nintendo fans are making it a point to pick it up. This supports the idea that poor sales on other platforms are due to a lack of changes to the series and not to the loss of the FIFA name.
With a new FIFA game happening without EA in the future, the publisher will surely want to establish its FC series as a success and the true successor to FIFA. However, this drop in sales does not seem to be the best start.
MORE: What EA Sports Needs To Do To Compete Against FIFA
EA Sports FC 24 is available now on PC, PS5, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
