EA Expects To Milk $1 Billion In Incremental Revenue From DLC Add-On Game Content This Year

Looks like Electronic Arts is not holding back this year with its sports games. The video game publisher is expecting to make around $1 billion in revenue from downloadable content and is also taking steps to crack down on cheaters for its various sports titles.

Madden NFL 15 is one of the key games to EA’s strategy. Aside from players paying $60 for the standard game, EA is pumping out a plethora of add-on content such as Ultimate Team players, jerseys, coaches, playbooks, and stadiums. The Madden Ultimate Team packs, which can be purchased with Madden Points, are a huge moneymaker for EA that comes with at least one gold or elite player, nine other players, and some.

Analysts, such as Cowen and CO. Doug Creutz, expect the latest Madden game to generate more than $350 million. Creutz believes that the game alone will make around $300 million while Ultimate Team sales might total $50 million.

EA expects Madden NFL 15 to be, according to EA spokesman John Reseburg, “a major contributor.” But in order to reach its $1 billion goal the company is also cracking down on coin sellers in its FIFA franchise.

Leading up to FIFA 15’s launch, EA published an update on the official FIFA site discussing the effects that coin and card-trading bots have had on its FIFA Ultimate Teams servers. EA deactivated trading in its FUT web app back in May because of the bots which, according to EA, “caused the loss of in-game currency and athletes for other players. In turn, the makers of these bots sell Ultimate Team goods on third-party websites.” The publisher went on to call such people cheaters and revealed that, since February 2014, it has banned “hundreds of thousands of Fifa 14 accounts for coin selling and buying.” 

For coin merchants and farmers caught, EA is punishing them with a permanent online ban from all of its games. Those who purchase coins, or promote sites and applications that re-sell these virtual items, will be given three strikes, with the third strike resulting in a permanent ban from FIFA Online.

Do you think EA will reach its $1 billion goal and what do you think about all of the DLC and add-on content that is available?

Madden NFL 15 launched August 26 on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 platforms.

FIFA 15 launches September 23 on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC platforms.