According to the well-known FIFA leaker DonkTrading FIFA 23 will be Free-to-Play! This is EA's reaction to Konami's announcement that eFootball will officially be free-to-play in the future. But what does this mean for FIFA? Will FIFA 23 be Free-to-Play?
That would be great! FIFA 23 as a free game, can you imagine? Seriously, if any developer could afford it, it would be EA. With Ultimate Team EA earns a lot of money every year, so theoretically they could rely on this game mode alone.
- Read more: FIFA 21 FUTTIES are here! All the Info
Leak: FIFA 23 Will Be Free-to-Play!
The well-known and actually trustworthy leaker @DonkTrading announced a few days ago that FIFA 23 would be Free-to-Play and also features Cross Platform. That sounds really cool! FIFA would directly counter Konami's new concept with this.The Japanese company has announced that eFootball (formerly PES) will be available as a free-to-play game from now on.
Free to play Cross platform #FIFA23
— Donk | #FIFA22 (@DonkTrading) July 17, 2021
FIFA 23 Becomes Free-to-Play – the End for Konami's eFootball?
If the leak is true, it would be a declaration of bankruptcy for Konami, as the only advantage eFootball has over FIFA would be gone. It's questionable at the moment how eFootball will be financed, since it doesn't have a game mode as popular as FIFA Ultimate Team. So, the eternal comparison between PES and FIFA goes into the next round.
Leak: FIFA 23 Will Be Free-to-Play! Ultimate Team Finances the Game
If FIFA 23 were to really be free, EA would have to earn all the money via FIFA Ultimate Team. Currently, this is really conceivable, because many gamers invest several thousand Euros every year to build up a good FUT team. Without this pay-to-win aspect, you can hardly achieve anything in FUT Champions, that's unfortunately a fact. If you do poorly in FUT Champions, you can't qualify for esports either. So EA has a big financial prop with Ultimate Team. In the past, a document also surfaced revealing that FUT is the cornerstone in FIFA. The game is built in such a way that you inevitably end up in Ultimate Team and spend real money on packs there. This also reignited the gambling debate. Speaking of gambling: FUT is already banned in some countries, as EA is accused of gambling here. If these accusations continue, EA could no longer finance itself via this game mode.
FIFA 23 Becomes Free-to-Play - What Speaks Against It?
First of all, EA would lose a lot of revenue by selling the full version. FIFA 21 alone was sold more than 1.5 million times in February. In addition, there are the different versions, the Ultimate or Champions Edition cost up to 100€. For FIFA 22 EA announced that a free upgrade to the Next-Gen is only possible with the Ultimate Edition. Thus, it's really hard to imagine that FIFA 23 would be free of charge. Furthermore, not everyone plays FUT - many other game modes like the career mode, Pro Clubs or Volta are also popular. EA would have to put these modes behind a paywall in a free-to-play version. Sounds absurd.
FIFA 23 will be Free-to-Play! Can we trust the leak?
Leaks are always a tricky beast... Often, certain posts just fuel discussions. Up until Konami's announced the free to play eFootball game, there weren't even whispers from EA in this regard - and suddenly these rumors appear. DonkTrading is actually a reliable leaker, but with this post we have to be careful for now. A free FIFA would be cool, but at what price?
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