After a release that was not without its speed bumps, EA have confirmed that Star Wars Battlefront II did not achieve the sales they expected since launch.
The report comes from The Wall Street Journal, who reports EA’s latest Battlefront game sold 9 million copies, which falls 1 million short of the company’s 10 million sales projections. It could still sell more by the end of the fiscal year in 2018, but by comparison, the last Battlefront to release in late 2015 had hit 14 million in sales by the end of fiscal 2016 (March 31, 2016).
Before we take a moment to feel bad for EA, their finance chief Blake Jorgensen says the controversial microtransactions will make a return “in the next few months.” They were initially pulled after the games release due to a severe amount of backlash came from fans about the way they were implemented.
Jorgensen said “We’ll do it when we think it’s ready,” and mentioned that the controversy surrounding the microtransactions (and how they could be considered a form of gambling) had an impact on sales of the game.
Despite all of this, the game itself isn’t bad and had a pretty hefty update recently to make some improvements. In our review, we said: “…there’s just something wonderful about a well-produced Star Wars game and for fans of the franchise and gamers looking to immerse themselves in the universe nothing else quite captures the feel and magic like Star Wars Battlefront II. It expands on the scope of the films like no other Star Wars game out there.”
Are you sad that the game hasn’t performed as well as EA had hoped? What does this mean for future Star Wars games? And on a scale of 1 to pissed, how pissed are you that microtransactions are coming back soon?
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
he/him
Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
