Short answers, pulled from the story.
U.S. Gold held the FIFA World Cup video game license originally, releasing World Cup Carnival for the 1986 World Cup. Electronic Arts acquired the license in 1997 and held it through 2023.
World Cup Carnival was not an original game. U.S. Gold, facing internal development problems, acquired the rights to an older game called World Cup Football by Artic, repackaged it with official licensing, and rushed it to market. The result was criticized by gamers, retailers, and reviewers alike.
World Cup 98 was the first football video game to include accurate national team kits with kit manufacturer logos and official merchandise. It also featured commentary from Des Lynam, Gary Lineker, and Kenneth Wolstenholme, the song "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba on the menu screen, and a classic mode with sepia-toned black and white graphics.
FIFA granted Konami the license to produce two Japan-only titles tied to the 1998 World Cup: Jikkyou World Soccer: World Cup France 98 for Nintendo 64, developed by Konami's Osaka team KCEO, and World Soccer Jikkyou Winning Eleven 3: World Cup France '98 for PlayStation, developed by Konami's Tokyo team KCET. Outside Japan, both were sold without the FIFA license or real player names under different titles.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup game contained 199 of the 204 national teams that participated in the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification process. The five absent teams, including Central African Republic, Eritrea, and Bhutan, had all withdrawn from qualifying before it began.
For the 2026 World Cup, FIFA adopted a non-exclusive Digital Football ecosystem, allowing multiple games across different genres to carry the FIFA license at the same time. The official World Cup game, FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition, was published by Netflix and produced by Delphi Interactive and Refactor Games, releasing in June 2026. EA Sports FC 26 added an unlicensed World Cup mode called The World's Game on the 4th of June 2026.