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Ultimate Team microtransactions now make more money than FIFA itself.

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Big publishers like EA and Activision are increasingly seeing more and more of their profits come from microtransactions, rather than the sale of video games themselves – and EA’s latest financial results have revealed just how unbalanced that relationship is becoming.

As the modern-day equivalent to collecting Panini stickers, Ultimate Team in general last year accounted for a staggering 28% of the company’s net revenues.

At the moment, 55% of EA’s revenues come from the actual sale of games, with everything else down to microtransactions and other ‘live service’ products like EA Access.
 

Mista

Banned
That's crazy if true......
I won’t say it isn’t true because I’ve seen how people spend opening packs. I have friends that just play FIFA and I’m not exaggerating but I’ve seen them drop thousands and thousands to open packs. One time we had a gathering in a friends house, we all brought our consoles and hooked them up. 3 of the people with us were already playing FIFA UT and I witnessed around 7000 pounds in total getting blown away just for those limited time packs.
 
I won’t say it isn’t true because I’ve seen how people spend opening packs. I have friends that just play FIFA and I’m not exaggerating but I’ve seen them drop thousands and thousands to open packs. One time we had a gathering in a friends house, we all brought our consoles and hooked them up. 3 of the people with us were already playing FIFA UT and I witnessed around 7000 pounds in total getting blown away just for those limited time packs.
If I showed you my FUT team that I built from scratch without paying a single penny/cent/quid/pound/euro/dirham/dollar, you'd be impressed and shocked at the same time. I'll upload the pic soon.

It took me only 30-50 days of two hour sessions to build my FUT Team and managed to build a great team. The funny part is my team could have been even better if I knew how to play the transfer market. I learned about the tricks of it myself these past two weeks. I have about 200+ gold rated players just from playing weekly division rivals and getting the mega pack rewards each week.
 
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Mista

Banned
If I showed you my FUT team that I built from scratch without paying a single penny/cent/quid/pound/euro/dirham/dollar, you'd be impressed and shocked at the same time. I'll upload the pic soon.

It took me only 30-50 days of two hour sessions to build my FUT Team and managed to build a great team. The funny part is my team could have been even better if I knew how to play the transfer market. I learned about the tricks of it myself these past two weeks. I have about 200+ gold rated players just from playing weekly division rivals and getting the mega pack rewards each week.
I respect that. Hats off to you my friend
Looking forward to see your team :D
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo

Big publishers like EA and Activision are increasingly seeing more and more of their profits come from microtransactions, rather than the sale of video games themselves – and EA’s latest financial results have revealed just how unbalanced that relationship is becoming.

As the modern-day equivalent to collecting Panini stickers, Ultimate Team in general last year accounted for a staggering 28% of the company’s net revenues.

At the moment, 55% of EA’s revenues come from the actual sale of games, with everything else down to microtransactions and other ‘live service’ products like EA Access.

Can see the game being given away free and open it up to a wider player base to push micro-transactions even further sadly
 

Stitch

Gold Member
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Petrae

Member
FIFA has worldwide appeal, which means more suckers for EA to drain money from. Madden and NHL are bad, but they don’t have the universal power that FIFA has. And, with a fiercely loyal base of fans wanting the best cards representing their favorite players, it’s super-easy to drain that money when it’s all a crapshoot as to whether you get it.

Without government intervention, this shit is only gonna get worse.
 

Shifty

Member
This must be the fiscal equivalent of a grey goo / technological singularity scenario.

But, you know, with footballers and microtransactions and stuff.
 

ROMhack

Member
Not surprised really but the only thing that gets me is that FIFA has always been a bit naff playing as the top teams. I used to play religiously with friends on 08/09/10 and we kinda figured out early that it was a lot more fun to play with 3 and 4 star teams. Matches with the top, top teams always felt unrealistic and boring.

FIFA's always been a bit weird though. We used to set-up custom tournaments and once had a situation where New Zealand (a one star team) got to the final of a World Cup type thing we set-up. We both played as them and it felt like the game had made their players a lot better when going up against the likes of Spain and Germany.

Its why I can't take UT seriously and wonder what's happening behind the scenes. FIFA is well known for being a bit of a racket with rubber-banding. It seems like it would be infuriating if you took that into an online zone where you've paid money for things and naturally expect your team to play better because of it.
 

imsosleepy

Member
I buy fifa every year, but I only play it when I play with friends at my home and we always have a blast
never start ultimate team because I did it once and got so addicted and bought packs and wasted way to much money lol
 

ROMhack

Member
I still find it jarring because FIFA is and always has been crap when playing with the best teams.

I used to play randomized mini-tournaments with friends (we played dozens of them) and it was universally agreed that it was a lot more fun to play with 3/4 star teams.

Then again, there's a huge psychological aspect at play in UT. It's basically gambling, or at least the very least that odd consumerism where you feel motivated to keep up with everyone else.
 

Portugeezer

Member
The whales will continue to dictate the direction FIFA takes. This is why Volta, which was enjoyable in its own right, inexplicably didn't have online mode :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I first played Ultimate team in FIFA 14, it was the only football game in PS4. It was great fun. I also played ultimate team on FIFA 15. Since then I realised it was a scam, you have to play like 200 hundred of hours of winning to just have one of the top players ( C Ronaldo, Messi ), just one player. This is unrealistic so you have to buy packs or get incredibly lucky (ahahaha) in the slither of free packs you may aquire. I don't have the disposable income to compete with people literally spending thousands on packs...

Nothing carries over from year to year, wallet drain simulation every year, not even one player.
 
Bigger question is why are so many people pumping so much money into a game that has life just less than a year?

I wouldn't be surprised if this is some kind of money laundering scheme with some major drug cartels.
 
I hate it, but if it's working for them, why not? At end of the day, EA is just another business looking for the highest margin of profit with the least effort exerted. The shareholders must be dancing over their pile of money right now.
 
I'm sorry, but fuck EA and their shitty Fifa games. Its a fucking cancer to the video games industry.
Sports games took a turn to worse a long time ago. I actually enjoyed a lot of EA BIG titles back in the day. My only hope is that the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 revives the golden age of radical and silly fun sports games.
 

Damigos

Member
What that means is that if people but the game for 60$ (most of them do so) then on average they spend more than 60$ on microtransactions each.
That is so sad..
At least we got From Software,
CD Project and lots more to praise
 
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