It seems that Battlefield 5 sales have put a damper on the financial future of Electronic Arts. The company has had to revise their projected earnings for 2019 downward as a result of the game’s poor performance.
Battlefield 5 sales were apparently not up to the expectations of Electronic Arts, and a number of different factors likely contributed to the poor performance of the game. Some criticisms surrounding the game’s content and presentation had been voiced by fans and were seemingly mocked at the game’s launch party. These issues were likely exacerbated by EA’s Patrick Söderlund stating in an interview with Gamasutra that those who didn’t like it shouldn’t buy it.
The single-player campaign was thought to be somewhat lacking, cooperative missions had not yet been implemented, and the battle royale mode was delayed. These issues along with the usual bugs and glitches in any AAA launch ultimately caused a dent in Battlefield 5 sales. Ultimately, Battlefield 5 ended up being sold at a 50% discount a mere two weeks after launch.
One or more of these issues contributed to poor Battlefield 5 sales and has caused Electronic Arts to revise their projected earnings for 2019 From $5.55 billion to $5.20 billion—a cut of $350 million. Their stock has also gradually declined by more than 45% since June of 2018 with some of the sharpest losses taking place in the lead-up to Battlefield 5.
Electronic Arts seem keen on turning things around despite the poor Battlefield 5 sales at the game’s launch. A new DLC update dropped at the beginning of December, adding some much-needed content to the game. A questionable design choice regarding time-to-kill was rolled back less than a week after it was launched; DICE had stated that they hadn’t got it right and hoped to learn from the experience. Most recently, several quality-of-life fixes are going to be addressed in an update in the near future that should hopefully smooth out some of the technical problems. Battlefield 5 sales may not have been the best at launch, but EA and DICE may be able to turn things around in the first quarter of next year.
[via Seeking Alpha]
