Although we’ll find out more details on July 30th, 2019, via Electronic Arts Q1 2020 Earnings Conference Call, a report has surfaced claiming that FIFA Ultimate Team’s microtransactions (MTX) now make more money than sales of the game.

Website metro.co.uk has published a mid-sized write up on EA and its money-making title FIFA. However, the piece isn’t solely about FIFA but the feature dubbed Ultimate Team and how much revenue it brings in.

The report shines a light on EA and how the company is seeing more of its profits come from MTX, rather than the sale of video games. This claim by the publication site comes from EA’s latest financial results where Ultimate Team last year made up 28% of the company’s net revenues:

“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.

 

[…] Ultimate Team in general last year accounted for a staggering 28% of the company’s net revenues.”

The report by Metro continues and notes the following information:

“EA didn’t break down any of the statistics by individual games, with only a vague admission that a ‘substantial portion’ was down purely to the FIFA franchise – where Ultimate Team has always been especially popular.

 

The numbers are going up every year, sitting at 16% of total revenues in 2017 and 21% in 2018.

 

But even that 2017 figure is more than what EA make from sales of FIFA itself, with revenues from FIFA 19 accounting for only 14% of net sales last year.”

Before the report closes out, Metro does make mention that at the moment, 55% of EA’s revenue comes from actual video game sales although everything else spawns from MTX and other “live-service” products such as EA Access.

With that said, none of this should come in as a surprise given the bullish act of EA (and other companies) defending microtransactions, paid loot-boxes, and other live-service mechanics.

Anyway, we’ll get an even better look at EA’s revenue, numbers, and other statistics come July 30th, 2019, at 2:00 P.M. PT via the company’s Q1 2020 Earnings Conference Call.