10 Video Game Cash Cows The Industry Can’t Stop Milking

Since 1993, a new FIFA game has been released every single year, with the series also featuring the FIFA Street spin-off games and additional standalone titles to celebrate various World Cup tournaments over the years.

In many ways, it makes sense to release a new FIFA each year, as many players and managers transfer between teams, but fans have long argued that this sort of thing could simply be done as a downloadable update, while EA defends the practice by claiming to offer new features and functionality in each annual release.

Part of the way that the FIFA name has been milked is through the introduction of the Ultimate Team feature, in which players are encouraged to use real money to purchase in-game trading cards. Players can spend inordinate amounts of cash on these cards, which are rendered relatively worthless when the next game comes out.

With football being the most popular sport on the planet, it's no surprise that FIFA games are among the industry's best-selling releases and will continue to be hugely successful for many years to come, but the series has come under fire for its heavy focus on microtransactions, which some critics argue to be exploitative.