It is being reported by Fightful Select that EA Sports has been in talks with WWE as possibly taking the reigns of their video game franchise, should WWE 2K22 do poorly.

This upcoming game is considered a "make or break release", with 2K having taken a year off from publishing WWE games in order to refine the engine and make up for a lot of the negative backlash that came from WWE 2K20.

The report stated the talks between WWE and EA have been on and off for years including before the 2016 extension, but the two sides started talking again about an agreement as far back as early 2021 following a lack of fanfare for the game WWE 2K Battlegrounds.

One source was quoted as saying “WWE has shown a lot of frustration with the reception and lack of success of recent games. The gaming market is a major selling point for them, and they believe they’ve fallen behind the competition.”

The report also states that since WWE 2K15, the budget for the games has gone down every year, while other franchises such as NBA 2K continue to get preferential treatment from the company.

WWE was described as believing their games are not on par with NBA 2K because of 2K cutting resources towards development.