Electronic Arts (EA) Announces Expanded FIFA ESPORTS Program
Electronic Arts EA and Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) recently announced a new EA SPORTS FIFA 22 esports program.
The game's ecosystem incorporates three competitions, namely, FIFAe Club Series 2022, FIFAe Nations Series 2022, and the FIFA 22 Global Series that will ultimately lead to the FIFAe World Cup 2022.
The program is expected to attract tens of millions of players and viewers to the competition where players will represent themselves, global esports organizations, real-world soccer teams, and their nation.
Players from more than 70 countries will be eligible to compete in FIFA 22 esports, which features both 1v1 and 2v2 competitions. Qualification starts from Nov 27, 2021.
EA’s shares ended the last trading session 3.1% higher at $137.94, and are set to record the fifth day of rally, the longest since April.
Electronic Arts Inc. Price and Consensus
Electronic Arts Inc. price-consensus-chart | Electronic Arts Inc. Quote
FIFA - One of EA's Popular Franchises
FIFA is an important growth driver for EA, given the franchise's impressive sales track record and user base.
FIFA 21 was launched on Oct 9, 2020 for Switch, PS 4, Xbox One, and PC. PS 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions followed in December. It also released for Stadia in March. The game has now reached over 25 million players worldwide.
During fiscal year 2021, FIFA Ultimate Team players grew 16% and FUT matches were up 180%.
The popular football simulation title’s next installment is expected to bring more improvements, new features and gameplay modes over its predecessor with the introduction of the next generation HyperMotion technology to analyze players’ actual footwork movements and body language.
Gaming Industry’s Growth Prospects Attracts Competition
Growth in the video gaming space continues in 2021. Per The NPD Group report, as cited by a Venture Beat report, the video game industry across video game hardware, content, and accessories witnessed robust sales in August with people spending $4.37 billion in all, up 7% year over year. This brings the year-to-date industry spending to $37.9 billion, up 13% from the same period last year.
The video gaming industry is set to witness a CAGR of 9.64% between 2021 and 2026 and reach $314.4 billion, according to the data from a Mordor Intelligence report.
These projections augur well for EA, which is set to release Battlefield 2042, an innovative first-person shooter game. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company also announced that its golf game — EA Sports PGA Tour — is slated to release in spring 2022. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
However, intensifying competition from the likes of Activision Blizzard ATVI, Take Two Interactive TTWO and Zynga ZNGA pose concerns for EA.
Take-Two’s Private Division is set to launch Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition on PS 5 and X Box Series X this fall. Moreover, Take Two’s publishing label 2K is preparing a spin-off of the Borderlands series, a looter shooter game Tiny Tina Wonderlands, which will arrive in early 2022.
Activision’s newly launched Diablo II: Resurrected, the combined remake of its genre-defining action role-playing series, Diablo II and its Lord of Destruction expansion have been gaining immense popularity.
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