Ultimate Team takes centre stage in FIFA 14 campaign

Electronic Arts has taken its hit FIFA Ultimate Team mode on a major PR and retail tour in a bid to educate the masses.

35 per cent of FIFA gamers play Ultimate Team, making it the most popular mode. But to some it’s a tricky one to explain – a mix between a manager mode and Fantasy Football, with the ability to spend real-world money on players.

And so EA has hit the road to make sure journalists and retailers can educate consumers.

FIFA Ultimate Team is quite a complicated thing. Everyone knows what a career mode is, right? But if you want to explain FIFA Ultimate Team in a sentence, it is quite tough,” Ultimate Team producer Marcel Kuhn told MCV.

We held an event with all the biggest retailers where we spoke about Ultimate Team. This is the first time we have done an Ultimate Team press tour. Two years ago we did nothing, last year I went to Gamescom and demoed it there, and this is the first time we’ve shown Ultimate Team pre-release. That shows how mainstream it has become.

Nine months after launch, there’s still 1m people playing FIFA Ultimate Team every day. That shows how deep the mode is and engaged people are. And the more engaged people are, the more likely they are to come back to the next iteration of FIFA.”

EA has pledged to reveal more about Ultimate Team at Gamescom next month: Our announcement will be an event. I am so excited to tell everyone,” said Kuhn.

Amongst the Gamescom announcements could include more aggressive moves into eSports. FIFA 14 producer Sebastian Enrique told MCV: That is something we are discussing heavily to see if we can support better.”