If you weren’t Rockstar Games or Nintendo then it was a pretty rough Christmas for you, with sales of the Switch and Red Dead Redemption 2 absolutely dominating everyone’s wish list to Santa.
For EA, it was a pretty terrible period despite the launch of Battlefield 5, which the company has now announced sold below expectations.
Now don’t get me wrong, the game didn’t tank. It actually sold a very respectable 7.3 million copies, but that’s still one million short of the planned figure.
So why does EA think Battlefield 5 didn’t sell as well as the company had hoped? Well, partially because of the lack of a battle royale mode.
The game launched with three campaigns, with a fourth being released later, and it does have a battle royale mode – it’s just not coming until next month.
During the company’s recent end-of-Q3 investor meeting, EA’s Andrew Wilson stated [via Seeking Alpha]: “In August, we determined that we needed some more time for final adjustments to the core gameplay to fully deliver on the potential of the live service, so we moved the ship date to November to accommodate those goals.
“Unfortunately, the later release date meant the game launched deeper into a competitive holiday window where heavy price discounting was a big factor. In addition, we also made the decision to prioritize other features, including a single-player experience, at launch over a Battle Royale mode.
“This year, Battle Royale modes became incredibly popular in shooter games. As a result of these decisions, we struggled to gain momentum and we did not met our sales expectations for the quarter.”
Although it’s not the only factor contributing to the sales of Battlefield 5, it’s certainly going to have had an affect.
Maybe when the battle royale mode is released next month we’ll see an increase in Battlefield 5 fans?
Did you buy this game at launch?
Featured Image Credit: EA