After 2K Games teased a bid for the FIFA license to start their own series, a new FIFA 22 players poll reveals a large chunk of the community is ready to leave EA behind.
The negotiations between EA and FIFA appear to have reached a stage of stalemate, following a statement from the football body that they want to eliminate one game developer “exploiting” exclusive licensing in the future.
FIFA has also reportedly asked EA to pay $1 billion every four years to continue their long-term partnership.
Since then, 2K Games has emerged as a potential contender – after their CEO teased a bid during the November Take-Two earnings call.
FIFA 22 players back potential 2K Games bid
In a poll posted by DexertoFC, which has racked up over 8,800 votes, 43% of respondents backed the potential bid from 2K Games to develop future games.
The predicament this would put players in, however, is that EA SPORTS would still likely develop a rivaling game under a new name. So, two big options would be on the market annually.
Let’s do a poll 🗳
Would you swap EA for 2K Games to develop future FIFA Games? #FIFA22
— Dexerto Sports (@DexertoFC) November 4, 2021
The poll ends on November 7.
A community divided
The votes for ‘no’ reached 33%, which suggests that there is still a significant amount of support for the current dev team at EA.
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Comments were sent in as replies to the poll and it’s fair to say that the idea has attracted mixed results.
One player said: “The servers in 2k are just sad. Playing online it’s a nightmare so I don’t know how I feel about that.” Another said: “These people must not play a lot of 2K lol, they are just as bad as EA, but the 2K MyTeam is terrible.”
“The only company worse than EA is 2k without a doubt. This would be the last outcome we need.”
Not all comments were negative towards the majority vote, however.
“It’s so obvious that EA doesn’t even care anymore about creating a better game. It’s copy and paste with a few tweaks and the gameplay is often broken. At least 2k try different things and try to improve the overall user experience. Not perfect but better.” One other user added: “NBA 2k Offline Modes > FIFA.”
It’s very much not confirmed that 2K Games will place a bid for FIFA’s naming rights in the future, but the prospect has provoked strong opinions on both sides.
While the majority in this poll would explore an alternative to EA SPORTS in the future, it’s very unclear how the landscape of football games would look if another major developer joined the pack.