Electronic Arts announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, or the last three months of 2022 (opens in new tab), and said that FIFA 23 is expected to be the most played and profitable entry in the series to date. The irony of this announcement is that it will be the last FIFA game produced by Electronic Arts (opens in new tab).

"In the third quarter, EA delivered high-quality experiences, drove record engagement in some of our biggest franchises, and expanded our player network. While our teams delivered for our players, the current macro environment impacted our Q3 results," said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts.

What the publisher calls the "EA Player Network" has now reached over 650 million players across its titles, with live services "and other net bookings" up 4% year over year and now representing 75% of EA's total net bookings. Yes, there are a lot of FUT packs and Sims cosmetics.

Back to FIFA, but more general tidbits, EA highlighted NHL 23 and Need for Speed Unbound as "quality" AAA titles, and the company's team delivered 128 content updates across 36 titles during this period, with "daily active users , weekly active users, and monthly active users all increased by double digits year over year".

EA CEO Andrew Wilson went into specifics during an investor conference call following the earnings announcement, saying that FIFA 23 is "on track to become the biggest title in franchise history" (Thanks, VGC (opens in new tab)). Wilson said that "net sales from the FIFA franchise are up 4% year over year," and that "in North America alone, unit sales are up 50% year over year."

The biggest contributor to this appears to be FIFA Ultimate Team, citing the game's "record engagement" in recent months, but the pure sales of the game are also significant: FIFA 23 had over 10.3 million players in its first week (FIFA 22 had 9.1 million ). Of course, there is also the intangible factor of the World Cup, which was released at the same time as a great soccer event.

What we will see later this year is the mother of all rebrands by EA: FIFA is the golden goose of publishers, and its ability to go beyond its license (which, according to Wilson, is merely "four letters on the front of a box" (open in new tab)) may be bullish about, but a change of this magnitude always involves some degree of risk.

What an EA might really help with is that the publishers actually know what they are doing. On the other hand, without EA, FIFA looks clueless about the game and is already putting its name on some frankly crappy stuff (opens in new tab). EA Sports FC may not yet be as well known as FIFA's numbered titles, but it is a serious contender. As long as there are no rivals in sight, this is starting to look like a win-win situation.