EA gets $ 1.3 billion in in-game content sales

Most game publishers now receive most of the revenue from the sale of in-game content. The trend for Free to Play games or freemium genres has not become less lately - more and more games are using just such a monetization model. At the Morgan Stanley investor conference, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jordsen shared information on income from microtransactions, various content packs and seasonal passes.

“The business of selling additional content brings $ 1.3 billion a year. Almost half of this falls on the Ultimate Team, ”said Blake.

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Ultimate Team is the largest store of additional content for FIFA, Madden, NHL and allows players to buy and sell player cards for real or in-game money. The main reason for the popularity of such content are the basics of human behavior - users are willing to pay to beat their friends.

In addition, the revenue of the mobile unit accounts for $ 650 million, the share of subscription services and digital copies is about $ 300-400 million. From the total number of sales, the amount of such type of purchases is 25%. Income from Electronic Arts's in-game sales accounts for almost half of the company's total digital distribution of content for the fourth quarter of 2015. The total profit share for the fiscal 2015 was $ 4.3 billion, and the profit from sales of digital copies was $ 2.2 billion.

The share of revenue from additional content over the past year increased significantly - in 2014, this figure was only $ 265 million, and in 2016 sales should only increase. According to analysts from the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (IGEA), in the last year the income from the sale of digital content grew by 27% in Australia and this trend will only continue on the world market.

“Consumers feel comfortable acquiring digital content in their favorite games. This has an impact on retail game sales, which continue to decline in relation to digital sales, ”said IGEA CEO Ron Kerry.

If you follow the trend in the gaming market, you can see that most gaming studios have already switched to such a system of monetization of their projects.