Though highly anticipated games like Anthem didn’t meet EA’s expectations, Respawn’s Apex Legends definitely surpassed them. In the conference call following the company’s Q4 and full fiscal year 2019 report (as reported by Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad), the battle royale title was noted to be EA’s fastest growing new game. There have been over 50 million players, with 30 percent of them being new for the publisher.
Respawn is currently working on new content, including new Legends and plans to releases the game on other platforms in new markets. To that end, Apex Legends will be coming to mobile devices, and even releasing in China. The success of the free to play model has incentivised EA to create more such games over time (though it’s committed to $60 “premium” titles as well).
Apex Legends released in February 2019 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC with very little build-up. It hit 25 million players in just a week and 50 million players within a month. Despite losing steam against Fortnite on Twitch, the developer said it was focused on the quality of its content as opposed to speedy delivery.
$EA Conference Call:
– Apex Legends is the fastest growing new game from EA (Over 50m players)
– 30% of Apex players are new to EA
– Focused on delivering new content, with long term service. New legends etc…
– Plan to release on more platforms / new markets.— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
EA confirmed later in the conference call that they plan to bring Apex Legends to China and to mobile devices. Expands on the final bullet point above.
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
$EA Conference Call:
– Apex Legends met with universal praise.
– Respawn is learning from the huge launch which led to many challenges.
– F2P business model a success, will look to create more F2P games over time.
– Will still have premium $60 titles.— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) May 7, 2019
