With all the recent fuss over microtransactions in retail games, it's easy to forget why in-game purchases exist to begin with: it's because when they work, they can work incredibly well. The FIFA series has been peddling microtransactions for years now through its Ultimate Team mode, a game mode where you're tasked with building a fantasy team of players and taking them to the top. You obtain players through "sticker packs", which can either be purchased with in-game money, or, if you want to speed up the process, real money.
FIFA is obviously a huge money maker for EA -- it's comfortably one of the world's best selling properties year in, year out -- but just how much profit does it rake in via Ultimate Team? EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has shed some light on the topic, revealing that around 35 per cent of Ultimate Team players spend real money on the mode. That's potentially a massive amount of people when you consider how many copies each FIFA title shifts.
"Today about 70-75% of all the people that buy the sports games join Ultimate Team. It's fun. It's a great way to play the game. Of those 75% of the people, about half of those people actually spend some money and the other half just play without spending. But in a free-to-play world, that's a fantastic balance of spenders and non-spenders," Jorgensen stated at a recent investor summit.
It's an interesting statistic, and some would argue a rather damning one, but you have to remember that FIFA casts a very wide net over a more casual gaming audience, which perhaps skews the figures a little. Nevertheless, it's a statistic that's quite eye-opening.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 16
There's a sucker born every minute. That includes 35% of FIFA players apparently
If you enjoy that part of the game I see no problem with spending real world money on it.
So $60 per year plus MT on games that may even use the same assets for years. They sell millions of copies . Then they will complain about low profits.
Perhaps they should just make a mini console that just plays FIFA, most of my friends who play it either play nothing else or very little, yet everyone I know who plays real games (sorry I can't think of another way to describe it) dont play FIFA or anything like that.
I don't get FIFA at all, if you spend money on this FUT are you still not just playing the exact same game of FIFA anyway?
I play FIFA a lot but have never really dipped into Ultimate Team so haven't ever paid any money for in-game stuff. When I have tried out FUT, I usually just try to get all the Bristol City players (and with them *usually being not very good, they're all really cheap and easily gettable without spending a small fortune).
*Let's hope their in-game prices don't rise after we smash Sammy's lot in a couple of week's..
@carlos82 What do you mean by real games?
@dryrain i think carlos means core gamers who have less patience for the microbs, as we buy more games.
I think the point that needs underlining here and everyone needs to understand is CORE gamers dont want microbs. Casuals who buy 1 or 2 games probably dont care, Ive pretty much written off fifa and madden. But please publishers think about what your doing if we start seeing microbs in the likes of Disgaea, persona and sony first party games there will be one hell of a microbs storm.
The best analogy I have heard came from the Pretty Good Gaming channel which likens these kind of purchasers to cinema goers.
Core gamers go to the cinema a lot, they see lots of different films, spend a lot of cash and aren't going to be spending another £10 on nachos, popcorn, drinks etc. each time because they want to see the film.
The casual gamers might only go and see a few films a year so it is a bigger occasion and spending extra money on snacks and treats makes it more of an experience.
I think that makes a lot of sense and it is clear that the major publishers are chasing those gamers more than they are us. EA doesn't really make games for us 'gamers' anymore, really. They want to make easily marketable, branded games with sports or movie affiliations that appeal to that person who gets Fifa every year or sees the big promotions in their local supermarket.
Unfortunately, the greedy microtransactions model is working for EA. I'll just spend my money somewhere else.
Only an utter idiot would spend actual cash on ultimate team.
You’re paying for virtual “cards” that have no value and are ultimately redundant by the time the next years game is released, as they don’t transfer.
The games are fixed like an arcade coin slot to lead you into buying card packs. And then keep going back for more.
Why would EA stop doing this huge con when so many mindless prats keep handing over ridiculous amounts of money for nothing!
A £4 pack gets you 20 cards in a “blind pack” this pack could easily hold nothing, and the best player being worse than the worst player you already have. £4 for nothing. Not only that, you already paid £60 for the honour of playing the low quality unfinished game, now you are paying for virtual cards of players in a game you already own!!!!!!
Utter losers that need to get a grip on how much money they are ultimately wasting (or spending on unwitting parents credit cards)
There’s no two ways about it, blind packs in a video game is educating people and encouraging them to gamble. EA are disgusting.
@dryrain I think @themcnoisy explained it a little better then me as I allowed my own prejudice in the statement. However I do stand by it, I know a lot of people who only play FIFA and don't so much as talk about any other games.
Even in here @themcnoisy does a great job with polls for GOTY and such and how many times do these sports games get mentioned despite selling so well. Think about best game ever lists they're never even in the discussion.
Sticking with PlayStation whenever I see comments about the PS1 it's all Resident Evil, Crash, Spyro, Syphon Filter and Final Fantasy, I don't see people reminiscing about FIFA 96, so that's what I mean by real games, is it a bit petty and biased? Probably but it's EA so they deserve it
I buy FIFA every year but I only ever play career mode. I played FUT one year and starting getting sucked into EA's money-grabbing tractor beam, so I went cold turkey and never played FUT again!
@dryrain Yeah unless you have a psychological disposition towards gambling, and then it's pretty abborent. It's easy to say it doesn't do any harm when you've not considered what it is like to live with an addiction or a compulsion, that's precisely what these kind of purchases are for some people.
Considering these habits can form for people when they're young and stay with them until they're adults, I'd say something is very wrong with this picture.
@Roe
If all the chat I am hearing is true....Unlike the actual ticket prices for the match!
@Kogorn733 "Barnum, sir... P.T."
Remembering that excellent investigative article into EA's closure of Visceral which contained the quote from an EA executive, "FIFA Ultimate Team makes us a billion dollars a year. How's your game gonna do that?"
Quite a more direct tone than the more diplomatic language used by Mr. Jorgensen in the above article, but I suppose he has to keep a "fantastic balance of spin and bullying", to paraphrase.
33% of all the FIFA players spending real money doesn't say much to me.
It would've been way more interesting so see how much real money they're actually spending.
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