When a video game is released, the developer has certain expectations for it. That’s just natural. Sometimes, depending on the title, a company will even alter a project for the fiscal quarter because they’re expecting great things from that title. But, when something goes wrong, usually the developer scrambles to find out the reasoning behind the failed reaching of expectations. In the case of Star Wars Battlefront II though, the blame is known, and it’s all on EA, and they missed their expectations because of it.
Star Wars Battlefront II was a maligned game from the moment the beta for it went out. For as gamers played it, they noticed the hard progression system, the overflowing of microtransactions, and other curious decisions that made it not as fun to play as they expected. And now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that because of this, the game missed EA’s predictions by one million copies.
— Sarah E. Needleman (@saraheneedleman) January 30, 2018
The game is hardly a failure, as apparently it’s sold 9 million units between October and December 31st, with a bunch of those buys coming from digital sales. Also, because EA shut down the microtransaction system before it launched, it’s very likely that fans decided to give the game another chance and thus the sales boomed, it’s hard to say.
Also in the report is rumblings that the microtransaction system is coming back, and very soon. It’s unclear if it’s undergone changes like the progression system is about to in March, but we’ll have to hope it does.
EA has been in “repair mode” since the release of Star Wars Battlefront II, as they’ve tried to please fans for months now. And while some things have worked, some haven’t gone far enough. Will this “lack” of sales mean less fan-wanted changes? We’ll have to wait and see.