These last few months have stirred up a lot of controversy with loot boxes and microtransactions, but there’s a reason publishers keep adding them into games. Speaking at an investor program (and partially transcribed by Gamesindustry.biz), EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has stated about half of the ~75% of FIFA 18 players that play the game’s Ultimate Team mode eventually spend money in the mode. This ends up being at just around a third of FIFA 18 players are paying for microtransactions.
Here is Jorgensen’s breakdown of the FIFA 18 Ultimate Team numbers:
“Today about 70-75% of all the people that buy the sports games join Ultimate Team,” Jorgensen said. “It’s fun. It’s a great way to play the game. Of those 75% of the people, about half of those people actually spend some money and the other half just play without spending. But in a free-to-play world, that’s a fantastic balance of spenders and non-spenders.” Jorgensen also speaks about how microtransactions help with player enjoyment:
“This entertainment form is probably one of the greatest entertainment values for consumers,” Jorgensen said. “If you go to a movie today, it can cost you in the US $20 to get in the movie before you buy popcorn, which is fun. It’s great, I love it. But at the same time, a $60 video game that people are playing three, four, five thousand hours during the year on, that’s a lot of value for your money. And...