Over the last year or so we’ve watched the dissolution of one of gaming’s longest running partnerships, as EA’s incredibly successful FIFA series detaches itself from licensing the FIFA name from football’s world governing body. Long before this happened publicly senior EA figures would, behind closed doors, hint to miscreants like me that it was coming: because all the value came from EA’s side. The videogame publisher has arguably done more to build FIFA as a brand over the last few decades than FIFA has done in its entire history.
