I admit I laughed.  People spend hundreds of dollars on stuff that does nothing except gather dust on shelves and will probably get sold for $2 at a yard sale 20 years from now.  People are spending money on a toy of the trainer from that fitness game.  To each their own.

Seriously, though, it looks like many people didn't understand what a money making beast Madden has become.  A guy at work spent around $400 last year on his team.  He then sold it on eBay for $200.  There is a LOT of money swirling around this franchise. 

I wonder if Fifa or Madden generates more revenue? I'd bet for Fifa, but to be honest I'm not sure.

I'd never spend that much money on madden are any other game.

What surprises me more is that people will be willing to spend stuff on a sports game that already costs $59.99 (before taxes). I wish I had that money to blow on virtual players. lol

I'd guess Fifa from sheer volume but, then again, people in the US spend a ton of money on videogames.  People try to get rare "cards" to make their team the best.  If I'm not mistaken, the very best cards can sell for around $100 via online auction.  Players get really into it.  The guy I spoke with said that rare cards from last year's game will still sale, as many people only buy a new game every other year or when there is a major jump in quality.

There seems to be a very real economic ecosystem in place around these franchises.

I'm certainly not going to sit in judgement.  I think, for a lot of these guys, Fifa or Madden is the game they'll play for the next several months.  

its hard to blame EA for microtransactions when you see this type of idiots, who will spent up to 96 dollars on stuff that you can probably get by just playing the game and getting good at it... thats so sad.

What he did wrong was not spending $95 on in-game transactions. His mistake was making his wife unhappy. 

That's seriously bad, man. No matter what we do, we got to make sure our wives or husbands don't get mad.

Video is so staged it hurts.

I didn't watch the video so I might be off when making this statement but in reality this guy probably spends less on games every year than nearly every single person on this site. I say this because there are a lot of people who just play Madden and maybe 1 or 2 other games. In high school a lot of people always played that and that was it. Mostly your jock types but it happens. At work when I said I that I played video games, one of my co-workers started asking me about Madden... Now spending that much on 1 game isn't something that I'd ever do but if you only play a few games every year then it's not that big of deal. If you're buying dozens of games per year (I'm including sales too, not just full-price) like the majority here probably does then spending that much is a big deal.

Now buying something your spouse isn't ok with isn't a good thing, but that's not that very uncommon of a thing to do either.

$95 is a relatively small amount. A colleague of mine was helping a customer and found out that they had spent more on in-app purchases than he made in a month, roughly €2000