EA Sports refreshes NHL and UFC partnerships with multi-year deals
Much to no one's surprise, EA Sports has refreshed contracts with the NHL and UFC to continue producing officially licensed games for both organizations.
Whether for better or worse, Electronic Arts is synonymous with officially licensed sports titles. EA Sports continues to hold the market on a grand slew of popular worldwide organizations, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. So it should come as little surprise that EA Sports has signed new multi-year deals with both the NHL and UFC to continue to create officially licensed titles for both franchises for years to come.
EA Sports announced its new multi-year partnership deals in separate official statements on the NHL contract and UFC contract. In both cases, EA is refreshing and extending its partnership to continue to act as the main developer of licensed simulation games of both of these sporting organizations. That means the chance of us seeing UFC or NHL head for another developer/publisher, such as 2K, is quite literally nil. It also means we can likely continue to see refreshed productions of the UFC and NHL EA video game franchises year to year, with the recent products of both organizations having recently released.
As mentioned, it shouldn’t come as much surprise. EA Sports pursued a similar partnership extension with the NFL and NFLPA earlier this year in which it was specified that Electronic Arts would continue to act as the sole developer of licensed football simulations for the NFL through its Madden series (which has arguably been an increasing stain on the annual video game release schedule). Even so, it hasn’t stopped the possibility of 2K creating some kind of football game that’s not a sim.
In their defense, FIFA 21, NHL 21, and EA Sports UFC 4 have all featured good gameplay improvements in their relative fields, even if gameplay off the turf, rink, or ring leave something to be desired, so those looking for more of the EA Sports core experience in those games might be happy to know it’s continuing on for NHL and UFC at least.
That said, it looks like EA Sports will retain its iron grip on officially licensed sports titles in the NHL and UFC for many years to come.
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TJ Denzer posted a new article, EA Sports refreshes NHL and UFC partnerships with multi-year deals
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It just doesn't seem like a great deal for any of these sports franchises. You WANT people talking about your sport if you're selling off the rights to it. You're hoping that translates to more people coming back to the actual game.
Competition does nothing but make it better, nothing but a win for franchises as far as I can see.
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