It doesnt matter if FIFA is licensed. The brand is synonymous with EA now... They wiped the floor with Pro Evo and no other football game, outside of manager sims, can match FIFA for content and replayability.

The brand is bigger and better than its ever been, and thats thanks to EA. Growth comes from quality. Sustained growth of the series can only mean one thing.

You dont play FIFA games, do you?

Huge jump in quality since 09-10, and it shows in sales.

The brand might be synonymous with EA among those who follow gaming, but not on the entire market... Any brand as popular as FIFA creates awareness that wouldn't be there otherwise, beyond the typical range of EA products. I've seen this myself at work, with the games being mentioned at the sports section of local news in my country, by people who know absolutely nothing about gaming. And having the complete roster of teams, players and stadiums definitely matters for many gamers here, despite not having anything to do with the development of the game itself.

Even if they were the best ones now, it matters as to how they got there. It's just not the same to build a franchise from the ground up than to build it from a license. To take advantage of a group of fans already out there, than to create them yourself. This is why I brought it up in the first place when you were comparing it to Nintendo's IPs. It's a flawed comparison from the start.

>FIFA

> "Quality"

Theres a reason its pushing 15 Million per Year, curl-6.

Haha. Well isn't this rather amusing.

Because it is FIFA.

Not to say they are not good games with a lot of options (at least the versions they give a damn about), but the they real success of the games come from the massive soccer popularity and the licensed real world players and stadiums. That is all there is. It would be the same if it had Activision, Ubisoft, or Sony in the box.

It was still FIFA back in 05, 06, 07, 08 and so on, yet it was nowhere near as popular as it is now.

Bad games dont increase in popularity that much, no matter the brand, franchise, etc. Top quality gameshave sustained legs and growth. 

Award winning, chart topping monster.

FIFA games are good. Most people who play them think so, as well as critics. I personally think that it peaked at 10 though.

And there's a reason Justin Beiber has sold 15 million albums, and Twilight has sold over 120 million copies.