EA Sports Earns Over $1 Billion From Free-To-Play Titles

By Brittany Vincent

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Sports’ free-to-play mobile titles have grossed over $1 billion to date, according to research from analyst firm Sensor Tower.

This figure comes from EA’s titles including the “Madden NFL,” “FIFA,” “NBA Live,” and “EA Sports UFC” franchises available in the App Store and Google Play store on a worldwide scale. It only includes revenue from self-published titles from EA and not games licensed out to other publishers.

About 49% of this revenue was generated by in-app purchases from games under the “Madden NFL” umbrella, totaling over $490 million in estimated player spending. The “FIFA” titles like “FIFA Soccer” and “FIFA 15 Soccer Ultimate Team” comprise a large portion of revenue as well, accounting for nearly 36% of the revenue, which equates to over $360 million. “NBA Live Mobile Basketball” was no slouch either, contributing around 14%, or $140 million, of all gross spending. “ UFC” only represented about 2% of total revenue.

Mobile gaming continues to be a lucrative spending avenue for EA, especially in the US, as gamers in America contributed around 62% of the $1 billion EA has gleaned from its free-to-play titles. This equates to $620 million of the overall total. Great Britain and Japan trailed behind at 5.7 and 5.4% of the total, though most of the revenue gleaned from each area focused mainly on “FIFA” titles.