Belgium starts criminal investigation against EA over FIFA loot boxes, Gaming Commission looking to sue

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Ka-pi96 said:

fatslob-:O said:

Really ? "(60% just from Fifa Ultimate team iirc)" 

It didn't sound like how he implicated it in his wording at all ... 

You do realize that the majority of the money that EA makes on their FIFA licenses are to be repaid in debt when the bought the license, right ? Rest assured that EA's margins are thin and that the FIFA body isn't getting screwed out of the deal in the process since they hold all the keys. FIFA may sell a lot of copies but it's no good to EA if the FIFA body just keeps taking most of it and EA doesn't seem all that thrilled about their Star Wars license from Disney ... 

A bit out of date, but here's a source using 2016 data saying that FIFA as a whole makes up 40% of EA's revenue and that Ultimate Team by itself was worth about $800m a year. I expect that has grown now (well, obviously if it's now 60%) but UT wouldn't have suddenly grown so much in the last 2 years that it alone now makes up 60% of their revenue.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2017/10/10/fifa-remains-eas-bread-and-butter/#4c2596aa2140

Well I'd assume EA aren't complete idiots and don't pay much at all for the FIFA licence. It's a pretty useless licence, considering it literally only lets them use the FIFA name in their games, that's it. They don't really hold any keys at all. If EA had to rename the game "EA football" or something because they lost the FIFA licence, it would barely make a difference. The only real impact the FIFA licence has is that it allows them to use the World Cup, but that's only every 4 years, and they get by just fine making plenty of money without it in the other 3 years.

The FIFPro licence (for players) is obviously well within their means to afford considering Konami also pay for that one, despite PES not even coming close to FIFA's sales. The individual league/team ones wouldn't be that much either, for starters Konami also pay for a bunch of them, including some of the biggest teams around such as Liverpool and Barcelona, and well again EA aren't idiots, they aren't going to give up most of their income for licences, especially when their sole competition is as weak as PES is currently.

Look what I posted before. it's 5 times bigger now and the main source of income of EA. They are at a point with Fifa that could give all their other games away for free and still make a hefty profit simply through UT. Fifa's revenue generation January through August lies at 5.15 Billion Dollar, with at least 4 Billion out of them must have been through UT.

The problem with UT is that they're not only selling power (aka Pay to Win), but gambling for it and getting away with it until now. You literally need hundreds of Packs to get at least a halfway decent team, and since the mode is competitive you either shut up and spend your money or leave out the meat of the game. That's Fifa nowadays, sadly.

Really, I wish some Indie devs would have the guts to make some sport sims, too, even without the licenses. Just add an extensive editor and Mod support so one can add the players, stadiums and all other infos yourself.