EA Sports is making a fortune off its Ultimate Team modes
The easiest way to get talented players in any sport is to spend a lot of money —that's simple capitalism. Apparently, that applies to the video game world as well.
EA Sports announced Wednesday that it is raking in roughly $650 million a year in micro-transactions made in Ultimate Team modes in the company's FIFA and the Madden franchises.
The main contributor to EA's giant stack of cash — FIFA.
The micro-transactions in FIFA's Ultimate Team mode — FUT, as it's called by the cool kids — allow users to buy FIFA points, which can then be used to buy packs of cards, any of which could add a Neymar, a Messi, a Cristiano Ronaldo, or an Eden Hazard to your squad, making it nearly invincible in the process.
That's not how it goes for the vast majority of FUT owners though — typically, users end up with a cards featuring Thorgan Hazard, Eden's younger, less awesome brother, and Jon Flanagan.
EA Sports has taken advantage of FUT users' Man City-esque lack of patience in building world-class teams. One hundred FIFA points costs $0.99 for most users, and your best chance of landing a world superstar, a Premium Gold pack (10 gold-rated players and two silvers), costs 750 FIFA points.
EA Sports doesn't publish the odds of landing a an elite player like Messi or Ronaldo in FUT, but the Internet pegs it at roughly 1-in-impossible. One Reddit user posted that he opened roughly 1,000 packs in search of Ronaldo card and only landed one.
Stories of teenagers racking up massive tabs on parents' credit cards are too plentiful to fully list here, but they highlight how addictive the mode can be. Those were just kids. How many adults around the world are not openly admitting that they are handing over thousands of dollars, all in the quest to land an avatar of an athlete?
This is why we can't have nice things.
Dieter Kurtenbach buys FIFA every year. He's a big fan of franchise mode. He tweets @dkurtenbach
