Electronic Arts has announced during its quarterly earnings conference call that Star Wars Battlefront 2 sold less than one million copies, which is less than what EA had projected sales to reach.
The following information regarding Star Wars Battlefront 2 moving less than one million units comes in by investor.ea.com. During this quarterly earnings conference call, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson and Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen explained how DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 shipped less than one million copies between October and December 2017.
Microtransactions is mentioned as potential avenues to make up for the lack of sales, with Wilson saying that…
“live services including optional digital monetization, when done right, provide a very important element of choice”
Jorgensen followed up on Wilson’s statement about live services and explained that Star Wars Battlefront 2 did not do well, but the microtransaction service “significantly exceeded them”.
The sad part about this is that EA already knew that the game was going to underperform and that microtransactions would compensate in the long run, which is why EA could remove microtransactions from the game during launch and made mention that it would have no impact on its financial outlook:
“On November 16, 2017, Electronic Arts Inc. (“EA”) announced in a blog on its website at www.ea.com/news that it will turn off all in-game purchases for the Star Wars Battlefront II title until further notice. This change is not expected to have a material impact on EA’s fiscal year 2018 financial guidance.”
In other words, EA knew to play on the weak-willed to compensate on a title that would sell less, taking advantage of MTX services in other games. This also lets us know that MTX can pull in money very quickly and exceed that of any major/fast selling title due to its short time up.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Star Wars Battlefront 2 sold 9 million copies and is projected to move between 1 and 3 million more units by the end of fiscal 2018. These sales are said to drastically pale in compared to the 2015 game, which tallied up to 14 million by the end of fiscal 2016 after a late 2015 release.
