EA have just posted their latest financial results and the numbers are impressive, generating over $1 billion in operating cash flow in just one quarter. However the big news is that their digital sales now account for 60% of all their revenue, generating $2.8 billion net sales, an increase of 18% on the previous year. Whilst a lot of this will be DLC, it does mean many more people are opting to download their copy of FIFA rather buy a boxed game, with full game downloads up a massive 51% compared to last year.
They also state that FIFA 17 was the best selling console game last year, Battlefield 1 was the biggest Battlefield launch ever and has a player base more than 50% larger than that of Battlefield 4 at launch, and that during Q3, average gameplay time per player in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes reached a new record of 155 minutes per day. However, not a single mention of their other big Christmas game, Titanfall 2.
Source: EA
gazzagb
I’m glad Battlefield 1 did well, it just proves that if done correctly, you don’t have to stick to the same old formula. Battlefield 4 proves that it was getting stale, just how the COD games have also become.
The downside to this news is that it shows EA premium DLC works – I’m sure there is the temptation to hold back content for DLC that would usually be in the game. On the other hand, fully supporting the game for more than a year down the line (e.g Rainbow Six) will also become more tempting for them.