Anthem Launch Failed to Meet EA’s Expectations

Electronic Arts has finally revealed its financial report for Q4 and the full fiscal year of 2019 ending on March 31st. Since EA projected Anthem, BioWare’s troubled looter shooter, would sell five to six million units before the fiscal year closed, how did it do ultimately? Long story short, it failed to meet those expectations.

EA revealed the same in a conference call following the report (as reported by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel “ZhugeEx” Ahmad on Twitter). It did note that players had spent more than 150 million hours in-game since release, and the development team was working on fixes and new content. Anthem had had a recent update in that regard, but has caused annoyance among fans for removing Elysian Stronghold Caches.

As it stands, 49 percent of full game sales on PS4 and Xbox One for the company over the last 12 months were digital for EA. Anthem had the highest digital share of all EA releases, and that’s not too bad when you consider the release of other titles like Apex Legends and Battlefield 5. We’ll see where BioWare goes from here, especially since it’s “100 percent” committed to the game.

$EA Conference Call:

– Launch of Anthem did not meet expectations for EA
– Players have spent over 150 million hours in game since launch
– Team is focused on content /fixes for it.
– Battlefield Firestorm battle royale became the biggest Battlefield live service event ever.

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019

$EA Conference Call:

– 49% of EA's full game sales on PS4/XB1 were digital over the last 12 months.
– Anthem is the most digital game that EA has launched. (Highest digital share).

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019