One thing most game developers can agree on in the modern industry is that it's hard to drum up any awareness for your latest project without a mammoth marketing budget. Last year, almost 20,000 new titles were released on the PC gaming platform Steam alone, the majority disappearing into the content blackhole that is the internet. So when a smaller studio is offered the chance to get on the stage at the Summer Games Fest, an event streamed live to a global audience of around 50 million people, it's a big deal. Not something that you want to spectacularly misjudge. Enter Ian Proulx, cofounder of 1047 Games.

Amazon has reportedly made a bid to buy Electronic Arts (EA), the US video game company behind the hugely successful FIFA series. According to Stockholm-based gaming content agency GLHF, Amazon will confirm its bid to take over the gaming firm on Friday. Rumours have circulated since the spring that EA had been looking to be acquired by a large company, including Disney, Apple or Amazon. The rumoured takeover was first reported by USA Today, which said'Amazon has finally made an offer', citing GLHF as its source. Such a purchase could broaden Amazon's push into sports, following its purchase of live streaming rights of NFL and the Premier League on its Prime platform.

EA Sports announced Tuesday that the soccer title it publishes in 2023 would be part of the new EA Sports FC brand, doing away with the FIFA name the series has used since the days of the Sega Genesis and Super NES. The announcement marks a significant break for one of the oldest and most popular continuous franchises in video game history. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. "We're thankful for our many years of great partnership with FIFA," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a statement.

The wildly popular FIFA video-game series will be rebranded EA Sports FC next year, its publisher Electronic Arts said on Tuesday, ending a three-decade relationship with football's governing body. Launched in 1993, a generation of millions of football fans and gamers across the globe grew up playing the game and it became a huge money-spinner. But "months of tense negotiations" between California-based Electronic Arts (EA) and governing body FIFA failed to end in an agreement to extend the partnership, The New York Times reported. FIFA reportedly wanted the $150 million it gets annually from EA to be increased to $250 million or more. The game has more than 150 million player accounts, according to EA, and The New York Times said it had generated more than $20 billion in sales over the past two decades.