EA expects to earn 88.4 million euros less because of Battlefield 2042

Electronic Arts has lowered its forecast for annual revenue by $100 million due to the “disappointed” reception of Battlefield 2042. EA says the combination of the game’s “ambitious scale” and working from home led to the poor reception.

Battlefield 2042 fell short of EA’s expectations and presented a “challenge” for the company in the past quarter, EA says in its quarterly results. The game was “ambitious”, according to the game maker, for example because 128 players can participate in a match and the addition of new modes, “dynamic gameplay and more”. According to EA, developing the game with teams that worked from home for almost two years was a challenge.

After testing and preparation, the company thought the game was ready for players. As more players got their hands on the game, there appeared to be “unexpected performance issues,” according to EA. In addition, certain choices made with the game did not please everyone, says the publisher. Players complain, among other things, about the fact that Battlefield 2042 no longer has classes, but that specialists have replaced them. There are also complaints about the audio quality, the gunplay and the lack of features that were in previous games, such as a scoreboard, destruction and a page with statistics.

EA says it wants to continue to develop and improve the game, and says it is “completely committed” to the Battlefield fans and to “realizing the potential of this game”. On Tuesday, developer DICE announced what features will be returning to the game, such as improvements to the scoreboard, and the company also said the first season of new content will be released in the summer.

Due to the game’s disappointing financial performance, EA is lowering its expectations for annual revenue by $100 million. EA’s fiscal year runs through March. The company also says that this new expectation could have been even lower if FIFA and Apex Legends hadn’t delivered more than expected. FIFA 22 has had the strongest FIFA launch ever to date and Apex Legends’ sales are said to grow “exceptionally”. The latter could bring EA nearly $1 billion this year.

Despite the disappointing performance of Battlefield 2042, EA expects this quarter to have the strongest fourth quarter in EA’s fiscal year ever, with revenue of $1.76 billion. This is because EA had expected Battlefield 2042 to make up “significantly less than” ten percent of EA’s annual revenue. For the next fiscal year, that would be less than five percent. The game publisher emphasizes being a portfolio company. With this, the publisher wants to indicate that the poor performance of one game does not necessarily mean that the entire company will have a bad year. EA had net sales of $1.79 billion for the quarter.