The new online shooter Battlefield 5 seems to be falling short of EA’s sales expectations. An analyst believes this is partly due to issues with the community.
How is Battlefield 5 selling? Although EA has not released exact numbers, there are increasing indications that Battlefield 5 is underperforming compared to the predecessor Battlefield 1, thus falling short of Electronic Arts’ expectations:
- For instance, Eurogamer reports that Battlefield 5 sold less than half the amount of Battlefield 1 during its launch week
- Digital sales are not looking good either: Superdata estimates that only about 1.9 million units of Battlefield 5 were sold digitally in November. This is also below the threshold set by Battlefield 1.
An analyst says: Analyst John Miller believes that Electronic Arts will continue to lower expectations for revenue. He cites the following reasons for the disappointing numbers of Battlefield 5:
- Battlefield 5 faced negative feedback from the community at launch because it did not present an “authentic depiction” of World War II
- Furthermore, the single-player campaign was only “limited”
- Lack of cooperative missions and the delay of the battle royale mode has frustrated players
- Major retailers have offered Battlefield 5 at discounts of 33% or 50%
This leads to: The analyst believes that EA will lose value on the stock market when hard sales numbers come out in January 2019.
A lot went wrong
What’s behind this: Battlefield 5 had a rocky start due to the massive community outrage over the first trailer, which focused on fighting women and flashy action. EA responded to the backlash with “Then just don’t buy it.” This early on caused significant backlash on social media.
This year, a good Call of Duty has been released, the hype around Fortnite continues, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was so massive, that it absorbed all attention like a black hole.
Additionally, Battlefield 5 had a strange release model, where pre-order customers could jump in so early that outsiders wondered: “When is the real launch?”
Moreover, numerous features are missing in Battlefield 5 and are said to come later, leaving one to still question today: “When will Battlefield 5 actually start properly?”
In summary, there were probably quite a few reasons why it seems to be going downhill for the franchise in 2018 after a strong Battlefield 1.
