Ultimate Teams weighty contribution was part of a strong EA digital sales portfolio which has brought in $1.2 billion over the last year, up an impressive 47%. Overall EA’s revenue jumped to $4.143 billon and net income climbed from a loss of $276 million to a profit of $76 million.

“FIFA 12 established the best year in franchise history – with downloads and micro-transactions totaling $108 million*. FIFA Ultimate Team — a pure digital companion to recent FIFA titles was the second best-selling EA offering in the UK in fiscal 12.”

So a quite incredible performance from FIFA and especially Ultimate Team. The press release also mentions strong FIFA Street performance although no hard figures were provided.

Thoughts?

All the players in the Gold and Silver/Bronze teams have never been an IF (in form) before and combined with the usual Team of the Week there are going to be some 50+ IF players going in the game this evening. Plus the cards are in sexy blue, ohhhhhhh.

Hit the links below to see the teams in full via the Ultimate Team Viewer or get yourself over to the announcement post on the Official EA Forums.

TOTY Most Consistent Gold

TOTY Most Consistent Silver/Bronze

Hit the comments and let us know whether you agree with the team selections. They were decided by the community after all.

Plus you get to listen to the sultry tones of Romily Broad, probably worth a look for that alone…

Getting Started

Click here to view the embedded video.

Team Chemistry

Click here to view the embedded video.

Building A Better Team

Click here to view the embedded video.

The timing of Watchdog’s investigation is somewhat surprising given the recent patch and the length of time this has been an issue but it still represents a slightly embarrassing blotch on FIFA’s stability record which hasn’t been glittering over recent years.

The good news of course is that the fix is now live and people are beginning to to receive compensation from EA for their troubles in the form of free packs, which doesn’t mean everyone will forgive and forget, but it does soften the blow a little.

You can catch the full Watchdog piece, including EA’s response on the BBC website.

Have you received your compensation yet? Let us know in the comments.

The full patch notes can be found here, but a rundown of the most important updates are below.

• To better keep you protected, you can now only send trade offers to friends.
• A new trade notifications system will be deployed.
• A new design will be released for the Trade Feed
• You’ll now find a new Squad Wizard to help build and/or fill out your squad quickly.
• Introduced the ability to copy a squad to create variations more easily.
• The chemistry links between players will now be more obvious, with a bad connection coloured red, mediocre coloured orange, and good remaining green.
• We have fixed the end-of-game disconnection error affecting some PS3 and PC users.
• A recently discovered bug that allowed an Ultimate Team player to gain control of another player’s team has been fixed.

Security improved, PS3 disconnects sorted, could you have asked for more? The proof as always is in the pudding but we can’t wait for this to be released, it’s going to be a very good week for FIFA indeed.

Thoughts?

In this, the last BTTF we’ve currently got planned, we want to know what can be added to FIFA as a whole to enhance the experience. Lots to cover…

FUT

Being able to manage your trades and auctions when away from your PC/Console is an absolute must and frankly the financial success of FUT tells us that a smartphone app is a matter of when rather than if.  So what needs to be in there? I imagine the ability to access the FUT markets on the go would be the primary use, but what about squad management? If there was the ability to manage squads and send links to social networks, would they be used? Would squad management be too fiddly on a small screen?

A smartphone app also opens the doors for features not yet available in game or on the web. iOS devices have excellent reminder capabilities (Android/WP7 may do too, I don’t use them) meaning you could be notified when players you’re bidding on are close to ending/you’re outbid or when items from your trade pile sell, similar to the way the iOS ebay app works.

Does the web app need much work? There are certain touches from the console UI we’d like to move into the web app and vice versa, but are there any features missing from FUT that would make peoples life easier?

Creation Centre

Creation Centre had received a fairly substantial overhaul when it went live for FIFA 12, including some excellent changes to the team creation segment. The new kit options were superb and allowed people to recreate teams with a massively increased level of authenticity. Moving forward, it would be nice to see Gameface support for created players. When we created the FSB team last year, we had to individually recreate ourselves with a mild level of accuracy which was frustrating considering we all had our Gamefaces there and ready to go.

The ability to create your own tournaments was a nice addition, especially considering you could import them to CM, but it still fell a little short in some places. Whilst you could create leagues, complete with branding, to play through, you couldn’t move outside of that single table. A natural progression of this feature would be the ability to pin a created league into the existing licensed leagues, with full promotion/relegation between them. This would allow users to create lower leagues that don’t exist within the game and still hook into the full CM experience. No doubt there would be HUGE technical hurdles in getting this to work, mostly integrating created players/teams into the transfer/player story systems, but this is “Blue Sky Thinking”.

Getting your content into the game also needs a lot of optimisation. Currently, downloading content in a usable state is hit and miss and even when it has worked, the load times to get into a match using created content is horrendous. Try using two created teams against each other, you’ll see what I mean.

Gameface

One feature we’d love to see implemented is the ability to actually see your club members gamefaces. In our recent interview with Gary Paterson he discussed the technical hurdles in getting this to work and the reasons for it being dropped after FIFA 09, but there must be a solution, given time and tech advancements. The benefits could be seen elsewhere too, such as Creation Centre, as mentioned above. To me there isn’t a lot wrong with the actual Gameface app itself. I’ve created myself and updated it every year without any fuss and have always been pleased with the results. More variety in facial hair/hair styles and colours would be great, but I think the basics and beyond are covered.

Replay Theatre

It was about 18 months ago, just after FIFA 11 launched, that I wrote this regarding Replay Theatre. It’s awful that a full release later, the exact issues brought up are still there. Once we’ve seen what changes the FIFA Street Network brings to the table, we’ll have a better idea of what to expect from the future of Replay Theatre if there is one. Hopefully we’ll see a drastic increase in the quality of the videos, as well the ability to save full replay files instead of just clips. Post save editing would be a great luxury but would never allow the production values of some YouTube videos. Full screen playback in HD is an absolute must, as well as increased storage slots (or hey you know, letting me just use whatever space I have on my hard drive…) and a full, web integrated search and replay suite built into the game.

Custom Audio

Another area we’ve written about before, and again we didn’t see much change from FIFA 11 to FIFA 12. I think most people take the set it and forget it approach to custom audio (I certainly do) but there could still be more tools to allow us to set things up correctly. Being able to test your audio against the in game crowd and adjust the volume accordingly would help avoid chants being drowned out, as well as being able to assign chants/audio to more events like pre match music for created tournaments.

EASF/Challenges

Challenges and EASFC are new additions from FIFA 12, so until FIFA 13 is released, we won’t get to see how EA see them growing. In terms of improvement, are the challenges OK as they are or should you be able to select your difficulty for each challenge and recieve an XP reward accordingly? Should you then be able to tackle higher levels of difficulty and receive the balance of XP or should it be a one time only deal for each challenge.

The media page on EASF needs some serious work. The bugs regarding media information need squashing and the quality of your uploaded content needs a HUGE lift.

Other APPS

Apart from FUT, could any of the other features above benefit from being available whilst you’re out and about? Would a Creation Centre app be a useful tool? Personally I’ve rarely touched CC since around Nov/Dec because by then, I’d created everything I wanted to and downloaded it to my console. If there was a way to update and create content on the go I’d probably use it more. What about a portable, scaled down version of EASF? Complete with media viewer and updates for challenges/leaderboards?

As ever, we want your thoughts. Please expand on the above with your own ideas in the comments below. If you’ve got feedback on other areas of the game, check out the BTTF tag and search for the relevant post.

As well as that gargantuan projection for this year it’s also been revealed that Ultimate Team already made EA a whoping $100 million last financial year which is essentially FIFA 10 and FIFA 11 combined.

It’s no surprise then that EA are looking to shift the FIFA Ultimate Team model in to it’s other franchises and here’s what EA President Frank Gibeau had to say:

“On the question about digital expansions within the Sports label based on what we’ve been able to do with Ultimate Team, we’re certainly looking at that as an opportunity in our other sports, but not just limited to our sports - We have a very ambitious plan to drive digital revenues off of our console businesses in our shooters category, in the racing category, in action. So we’re taking the key learnings that we’re developing from Battlefield and FIFA and we’re applying it to our entire suite of brands and across all of our different labels”

So there you have it, expect more micro-transaction goodness from other EA titles in the not too distant future and if they mimic the success of Ultimate Team, the future is indeed very bright for EA BUT is it bright for gamers?

Hit the comments guys and let us know how you feel about buying packs and micro-transactions in general.

Source: Eurogamer

Click the images to get a better look at them.

Wordfromthewise – Silver Liga BBVA

Aidan – FC Gooners

Chyngyz – EPL 75 Star

Johnpaulluna – ASTORIA FC

Neil – Blitzkrieg

Ole Martin – FK Oslo

Pablo – Inter Milan

Tim M – Irish

Tuome – Spain

Think you’ve got something better? Pop a link in the comments…

To be in with a chance of winning all you need to do is purchase any Gold, Premium Gold or Premium Gold Jumbo Pack, either from the Web app or in game, within the above time frame. Each pack purchased will count as one entry into the competition and you can enter multiple times. If you’re a winner, you’ll be contacted by email from the 24th of February.

Grand Prizes: (Available only to UK Residents)

• Signed Manchester City Shirt, 1 pair of tickets to Man City v Bolton at the Etihad Stadium on March 3rd, 100,000 coins.

• Signed Newcastle Shirt, 1 pair of tickets to Newcastle v Sunderland at the Sports Direct Arena on March 4th, 100,000 coins.

• Signed Chelsea shirt, 1 pair of tickets to Chelsea v Stoke at Stamford Bridge on Mar 10, 100,000 coins.

• Signed Arsenal Shirt, 1 pair of tickets to Arsenal v Newcastle at the Emirates Stadium on March 12th, 100,000 coins.

Secondary Prizes: (Available only to UK Residents)

10 Prizes of 100,000 coins

If you aren’t eligible because of your location, don’t panic. There will also be 10 Prizes of 100,000 coins for FUT players outside of the UK.

For full details, see the announcement on EA.com

Good luck.

It has been a strange time on the Fifa Ultimate Team market, player prices are jumping around everywhere, and what seemed to be good investments, turn into disasters. Everyone has noticed the price drops, it is a huge thing to take in to consideration if you are trying to build your Ultimate Team. I remember back in December, I bought a Neymar for 15,000 (below average market price), hoping that his price would rise. It turned out that his price not only didn’t rise, it plummeted. His average price is now under 9,000 – not a massive loss, but it was totally unexpected. I decided to research this further, and find the reason that player’s prices drop this much half way through the year, here is what I have learnt:

Why player prices have been dropping:

There are a few factors that have contributed to the player prices dropping, the most important probably is the massive increase of people buying packs:

• Increase of Supply:

During the winter period, many more people than normal have opened packs. As every economist will know, an increase in supply, will lead to a decrease in price. Players are becoming less rare and therefore their market price has dropped. Not great for people who have spent lots of money on very high priced players. So if you were someone that bought lots of packs during the winter, it was partly your fault that prices crashed!

• TOTY packs and IF cards:

When an in-form card of a player comes out, understandably people would prefer to have this card instead of the original, because it is better. This in turn means that the original player’s price will drop dramatically. Take Iniesta for example, before TOTY his market price was 250,000 , after this his price dropped to under 200,000 as everyone rushed to the packs to find the higher version. It has since risen slightly, showing that buying players just after their in form version is released can yield high profits.

How will the price drops affect you?

The majority of cards that you have in your club, have dropped in price by at least 5%. The players from TOTY and TOTW however, have increased by an average of 10% since their release, due to people not knowing their market price. If you have any players that have recently had an in form version released, their prices will drop.

It is extremely hard to predict whether your card will drop in price, perhaps the only way is by watching the trends on Ultimatedb.nl. You may be annoyed, but remember back to Fifa 11 where this all happened at almost the exact same time of the year. Perhaps the prices even dropped by less, I can remember really struggling to even sell players, because they had become almost worthless.

How can you maximise your profits?

The drop in prices will affect players with less money more than those with more. If you have little money, you will find it hard to start trading and making profits, as prices are all over the price. If you have lots of money however, you can take advantage of the price fluctuations, and cash in on players when their prices peak. Always check the player prices before you sell, this will ensure that you are not being ripped off.

• Buy low, sell high.

Obvious really, but I see many people ignoring it. It is easy to sell players cheap, but that will not do you any favours, wait until their price rise.

• Buy in form players as soon as they are released.

Their prices are proven to rise by alot after they are released. If you get a player for 60,000 just as they are released, it is likely that their price will be around 80,000 in about a week. Buy as many of them as you can, if you can afford it, you may just get lucky and rake in 100,000′s of coins.

• Buy regular players when IF’s have been released.

As you will have learnt, player prices drop after an IF card has been released. It is likely that their price will increase later on. Remember that you need to buy the players after their prices have dropped, buying before the drop would be plain silly! If you see the player’s prices rising slowly after a drop, this is also a good time to buy, there is no better way to make profits than buying when a player’s price is rising!

You can follow FIFA Monster on Twitter, and visit the site at FIFAMonster.com