The release of Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was not without its fair share of controversies, and it was obvious from the start that much of the chatter would hurt the game’s sales performance.
Turns out that’s exactly what happened, and while publisher EA is bullish about its future projections and relationship with the Star Wars franchise, it’s clear that the company is learning from its mistakes, it the hardest way possible.
According to The Wall Street Journal, sales for Battlefront 2 were around 1 million less than what EA had hoped for, hovering around the 9 million mark. That’s for the three-month period from October-December 2017.
EA chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen, told WSJ that the company expects another 1-3 million copies by the end of March. Even if it were to reach 3 million sales for that period, it would still put the game behind the mark of its predecessor, which sold 14 million units in the 2016 fiscal year.
Unsurprisingly, revenue is also down, although this can be attributed to the publisher removing microtransactions, including in-game currency and loot boxes, following an infamous bout with fans on Reddit.
Despite all the controversy — and the undeniable fact that poor sales can be attributed to the controversy surrounding loot boxes — EA plans to bring them back “in the next few months”.
Even more interesting is that Jorgensen even “blames the controversy in large part” for Battlefront 2‘s inability to reach sales targets … and yet EA still plans on bringing them back.
The news of Battlefront 2‘s sales performance comes after plans to overhaul the game’s progression system were revealed.
Developer, DICE, revealed plans to completely rework Battlefront 2‘s progression system, after having already dumped the prices by 75% and then turning microtransactions off completely, much to the community’s pleasure.
This is certainly good news for the remaining Battlefront 2 players out there (we do exist!), although the downside is that we won’t see anything else until March.
“Your feedback has been essential here, and we are preparing significant changes to progression that will address many of the things we’ve seen players asking for. We’ll be sharing more details about these changes in March,” EA DICE said.
