Major AAA publishers like EA and Activision have been under much backlash for microtransactions. But that hasn’t stopped them from earning from them. EA has earned more from the paid “Ultimate Team” mode in its sports games than actual FIFA game sales revenue.
Ultimate team mode is present in EA’s sports games. There’s a catch though- you have to pay for it. But it seems that unlike EA’s attempts at microtransactions in other games, this has proven to be rather popular. It has been revealed that the total revenue generated from Ultimate Team during the fiscal year 2019 accounted for 28% of the EA’s total earnings!
This percentage was more than the revenue generated from actual FIFA sales. EA has admitted that part of the reason why Ultimate team brought in so much money was because of FIFA players.
Statistics show an uptick in this trend. Ultimate Team accounted for 16% of total revenues in 2017 and 21% in 2018. But even that 2017 figure is more than what EA makes from sales of FIFA itself, with revenues from FIFA 19 accounting for only 14% of net sales last year.
EA live service contributed 48% to the overall income. This means that EA will not get rid of DLC and other post-launch paid content.
EA’s stock fell because of Apex Legends 2 disappointing launch. PUBG and Fortnite have been the cause of much grief to EA as it gives much competition.
EA Access and Microtransactions: Future of EA?
EA Access has gone live on PlayStation 4. With the release of Google Stadia on the horizon, some say that game subscription services are the future foundation stone of gaming company revenue models. Combined with the fact that microtransactions seem here to stay, does this mean EA will completely shift towards this model?
This would mean EA would release games that are not meant to be finished over a weekend or even a month. Instead, games might focus on stretching their content over as many “seasons” as they could. This model would be similar to how PUBG and Fortnite work except this would be worse.
This would be worse because these subscriptions are for a fixed time period. When this time ends and if you haven’t finished a game, you would just have to renew your subscription. Let’s see how it goes.
