At the moment the 13th promo in FIFA 22, the Road To The Final event, lures players with new special cards. But how many promos were there in the past editions – and do they pay off for EA Sports?
The list of promos in Ultimate Team is long: Ones To Watch, Future Stars or Rulebreakers seem to be more and more frequent in packs due to new events that are split over several releases.
On the one hand, nice news for FUT users. This offers alternatives to build more varied teams. On the other hand, it’s also good news for EA: For every release there are Lightning Rounds, during which a particularly large number of packs are available in the shop for a short time – and are bought. Accordingly, the publisher is probably interested in placing as many promos with as many releases as possible in FUT.
Ultimate Team is booming regardless of the sport
In fact, according to the database “futbin”, there has been a trend towards more promos and releases in the last few years: While there were still eight promos in FIFA 19 until the end of February, each consisting of a single release, this was followed in 2020 by nine promos spread over 14 releases.
At the same time, the Canadian company’s revenues from the Ultimate Team modes of all sports games increased significantly: According to industry insider Daniel Ahmad, EA’s annual report in this area showed an increase from US$1.37 billion to US$1.49 billion.
EA’s total revenue also increased from 4.95 billion to 5.53 billion US dollars during this period, according to the Statista database. A gain of over 500 million US dollars, more than 20 per cent of which can be attributed to the additional revenue from the Ultimate Team mode. And there is no end in sight to this development.
FIFA 22 sets new standards
For FIFA 21, the nine promos from the predecessor were followed by just as many events by the end of February, but these already covered 16 releases. Once again, there was an increase in both total revenue ($5.53 billion to $5.62 billion) and in Ultimate Team-specific revenue ($1.49 billion to $1.62 billion).
It is reasonable to assume that the trend will continue: EA’s financial year ends on 31 March. Measured in terms of the number of promos and releases, however, another windfall should be in the offing, even if there is no conclusive data to prove that the increase in profits is actually due to the promo events.
In the current FIFA, however, there were already 13 promos with 21 releases. And so it continues for many players: the hunt for the next special card, which at the same time fills EA’s pockets.