I’ve been an ongoing fan of the FIFA franchise, but the last few years have left me a little sour each time. It’s not because the game isn’t fantastic, but more because my favourite mode regularly gets left by the wayside.
It gets ignored for Ultimate Team, EA’s take on a collectible card game. And it gets ignored for a really good reason: Ultimate Team makes EA a stupid amount of bank.
Precisely how much, you ask? Roughly half of US$1.3 billion a year, according to the publisher’s chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen. Gamesindustry quoted the CFO at an investor conference run by Morgan Stanley, where Jorgensen revealed US$1.3 billion was how much EA makes from “the extra content business”.
To further put that in perspective, consider this added fact: the CFO also said EA’s mobile business made US$650 million in yearly revenue. In other words, Ultimate Team in FIFA alone makes roughly as much revenue as EA’s entire mobile business.
Food for thought.
Comments
12 responses to “Ultimate Team Makes EA A Hell Of A Lot Of Money”
Stopped playing FUT when I realised they were easily able to push the rare cards etc to the streamers on twitch etc on purpose.
They showed it was possible and not random when they pushed Castro his own FUT player card during a marathon event he ran.
If they can push individual cards that easily it’s no wonder the top streamers that bring them so much business happen to pull the super rare and expensive cards all the time
This somewhat annoys me as I’m one of those people who buys the new FIFA game every year, and UT doesnt transfer between editions as far as I know. Not that I’ve investigated it much because I dont really enjoy the mode and would prefer to play career or w/e…I understand I should know better and not continually pay for what is effectively a yearly roster update, but it’s nice to remember back in the day when UT wasnt the only thing they put effort into…
I find UT very tedious, but also pretty fun. I don’t spend a cent on it though. Career is my favourite mode by far.
Div 3/4 to Premier League champions all the way. Takes up a good 60-100 hours of my time every year and I’m happy to keep doing it.
I’ll be the same for me if fulham keep going the way they are. Although FUT doesnt tickle my pickle, my problem with the games is that each new iteration has some marketing buzzwords (awesomely realistic keepers!) that ends up as some half bake implementation at the expense of balanced play. 16 was the first ive missed since the early 00s. Still, I’ve got this awful itch….
I’ve been a bit shitty ever since that morale system came in. As much as I like playing keepaway with the ball in actual multiplayer to be a dropkick, it shouldn’t then result in Messi buggering up a basic pass as soon as the opposition gets the ball back.
I’ve really wanted to check out PES 16, but held off because … well, Konami.
Yeah i just can’t bring myself to play PES again, despite the fact it sounds like the play is better in some ways. Licensing does create a lot of immersion in terms of feeling like you’re a part of pro football. And, as you say, Konami (ptui!)
The only thing the morale system ever did for me was lower my own. As the content of your article infers though, probably nothing will change too drastically while the FUT cow is milking gold.
I buy Fifa each year and happy to do FUT again but never ever do i get a legend or rare card.
Played Madden UT for a while until I realized it was pretty much rigged so I had to start spending money when things got difficult. It drags you in, gets you addicted with the first few weeks, then suddenly you realize you’re barely earning enough coins to keep your team on the field let alone actually buy a new player.
Pretty pissed about it too as it was a lot of fun up until that point. The fact EA continue to make big bucks out of it, only means it will get worse and worse.
Didn’t everyone get the memo that PES is back!
I find Seasons mode the most fun. I play regularly online and try (and fail) to get to 1st division. I spend enough of hearthstone not to have another card pack thing going on.
I once had my Xbox Live account hacked and my credit (read: Microsoft points) stolen to buy ultimate team packs!