Battlefield 2042 has not been the hit release EA and DICE were hoping for.
Since launching towards the end of 2021, the futuristic military shooter has been plagued by bugs, glitches, server issues, and some seriously negative reviews. Within just a few weeks of launching, Battlefield 2042 was already one of the worst-reviewed Steam games to date, and its player numbers have been steadily declining on PC.
EA has now spoken frankly about Battlefield 2042's "disappointing" performance, admitting that the game "failed to meet expectations".
It's unclear exactly how badly the game sold, but we do know that the publisher has declined to share exact sales figures, which isn't the best sign. Despite this, EA seems confident that the shooter can - and will - bounce back.
"Battlefield 2042 did not meet our expectations," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q3 earnings call with investors. "Some of the decision choices that we made did not resonate with our community. We are fully committed to realizing full potential of the game and fully committed to our fans."
"Despite our Battlefield 2042 miss, we delivered record performance. We've adjusted our full year net bookings to $7.5 billion, up $200 million from last forecast. We expect strong growth to continue in FY23."
EA CFO Blake Jorgensen added: "We're going to refrain from unit sales. Battlefield is less than 10% of our revenue. Clearly we sold less units that we thought we would. Remember these games are long tails. Our goal is to add new content, new ways to play, new excitement to stretch this out."
It's been rumoured (but not yet confirmed) that part of EA and DICE's plan to "save" Battlefield 2042 may extend to making parts of the game free-to-play in the future. Watch this space.
Topics: Battlefield 2042, Dice