Why FIFA Street isn’t part of $100m Ultimate Team boom

EA’s FIFA Street is on store shelves as of today but it doesn’t include the lucrative online Ultimate Team mode.

When asked by MCV why this was the case, FIFA Street’s creative director Gary Paterson said: We did think about Ultimate Team. It was something that we considered but we knew we had a challenge on our hands to resurrect the FIFA Street franchise.

We wanted to minimise the diversity of our tasks so we could concentrate on what was most important. That was resurrecting a franchise and putting gameplay first.”

FIFA Ultimate Team generated EA $100m in revenues last year. It works by letting consumers buy, sell and trade virtual player cards to build their own unique football squad. They can also pay for new packs of cards using real money.

The popular mode was put under the spotlight yesterday evening on BBC’s Watchdog TV show, after consumers complained of a game-breaking disconnection problem.

EA says the bug was fixed this week as part of its March update.

Gary Paterson previously told MCV that FIFA Street could win over the last remaining” group of players of rival Konami football game Pro Evolution Soccer.