Star Wars Battlefront 2 Fails To Hit Sales Expections
Following the latest EA conference call, it was revealed that Star Wars Battlefront II has fallen short of its expected sales, selling 7 million. EA’s Blake Jorgensen said “We had expected the sale of about 8 million units [of SWBF2 during Q3] but we fell short of that by less than 1 million units.”
EA are expecting to sell 1 to 3 million more units by the end of 2018, which will fall short of the 14 million that the last Battlefront game sold.
With EA blaming the microtransaction controversy on the game missing its targets, with both the UK, US and New Zealand governments becoming involved over if loot Boxes are considered gambling.
EA’s finance chief Blake Jorgensen says microtransactions, which were pulled after the game’s release, will make a return “in the next few months.”
Here’s the EA boss Andrew Wilson’s comments during the beginning of EA’s analyst conference call:
Q3 was a quarter defined by strong performances and important learnings for us at Electronic Arts. We love making games. It is a privilege to bring fun and entertainment to people all around the world. As we look across our games and services this quarter, we have a lot to be proud of.
We brought hundreds of millions of hours of play to fans during the holiday quarter across console, mobile and PC.
We also appreciate that our players have high expectations of us and the games we make – and that passion drives us. As we push the boundaries with every new experience, we are continually listening, learning and taking action to serve our players.
Now, let me touch on Star Wars Battlefront II. This was definitely a learning opportunity. You’ll remember that we brought three of our top studios together on this project, and the result was a massive game with a new Star Wars story; space battles; and huge multiplayer variety.
We wanted a game that would meet the needs of the vast and passionate Star Wars fan base, so we designed it with the intent of keeping the community together, and a commitment to continually add content long after launch.
Given the newness of this design, we knew that player feedback during the pre-launch testing period would be key.
Having made adjustments based on sentiment and community data coming out of the beta and early trials, we ultimately made the decision to pull in-game purchases out of the game prior to launch.
We never intended to build an experience that could be seen as unfair or lacking clear progression, so we removed the feature that was taking away from what fans were telling us was an otherwise great game.
We are fortunate to have such passionate players that will tell us when we get it right, and when we don’t. We’re now working hard on more updates that will meet the needs of our players, and we hope to bring these to the Battlefront II community in the months ahead.
Having made these changes before launch, Star Wars: Battlefront II has been delivering fun to millions of players around the world, through the holiday season and beyond. With the breadth and depth of the game, fans spent twice as much time playing Battlefront II over the previous game during the launch quarter.
The unique story of Iden Versio at the center of the game has drawn nearly 70 percent of players into the single-player campaign. Engagement has been strong in the first season of free post-launch content from The Last Jedi, and we’re excited to bring new seasons to fans in FY19. As we grow this game with more content, we believe that Star Wars fans will continue to have fantastic experiences over the long life of Battlefront II.
Going forward, we believe that live services that include optional digital monetization, when done right, provide a very important element of choice that can extend and enhance the experience in our games. We’re committed to continually working with our players to deliver the right experience in each of our games and live services.
While the game struggled to sell as many copies as the 2015 version, it is great to hear players enjoying the game, the single player campaign isn’t incredibly long but enjoyable.
However the game did suffer badly from bad publicity from the loot boxes and microtransaction backlash, so EA will have a up hill struggle to convince some players to jump into the game.
Did you pick up Star Wars Battlefront 2?