14 DAY TRIAL // The FIFA Ultimate Team mode has been a huge success for EA, as the company managed to rake in around $45 million from that respective mode in FIFA 09 and FIFA 10, according to its Chief Financial Officer.
EA's been extremely pleased with its digital content profit margin this year, as more than 20 percent of its revenue, around $750 million, came from digital sales.
Out of that, the Ultimate Team mode from the FIFA football (soccer) simulator franchise managed to rake in around 45 million U.S. dollars, from inside FIFA 09 and FIFA 10.
Sadly, for the recent FIFA 11 football game, statistics haven't been revealed.
The Ultimate Team mode also managed to generate a lot of profit in other sports game franchises like Madden or NHL.
EA's Chief Financial Officer, Eric Brown, didn't have any statistics about other series, but revealed that FIFA players were the most prolific ones, spending a huge amount of money to get new players and assemble the best team out there.
Still, recent reports showed that over 35 super users of Madden spent more than $1,000 in the game to configure their Ultimate Team, so the American football game has also fetched a pretty penny for EA.
Brown also said that among the $750 million earned from digital sales, $16 million were generated by Battlefield 1943, a downloadable-only multiplayer shooter released last year.
Seeing as how more and more money is arriving from digital transactions, EA is already pushing more and more downloadable games out there, and announced a few weeks ago three new titles will be published next year by the company.
We also shouldn't forget about the recently announced Battlefield Play4Free, which will be based on microtransactions and released next year for the PC.
Also, expect the Ultimate Team mode to be improved and expanded in future iterations of FIFA, Madden or NHL, so that more and more people will be tempted to spend real money on virtual assets.