EA has admitted the performance of Battlefield 2042 at an earnings meeting last Tuesday, stating that the game “didn’t meet expectations” and that certain design choices haven’t resonated with players as well as hoped.
This news comes from industry analyst Daniel Ahmad, who shared details of the earnings meeting via Twitter. According EAlow sales of Battlefield 2042 they were due to a number of factors, including “unforeseen performance issues” as well as difficulty adjusting to a work-from-home schedule. However, the publisher assures fans that major updates are still on the way despite the lack of success.
At the same conference, EA also appears to downplay the game’s overall effect on its profits, stating that the Battlefield franchise alone accounts for less than 10% of EA’s business, while also refusing to provide sales figures for Battlefield 2042. Instead, EA talked about how well its other franchises are doing, likely in an attempt to mitigate some of the damage caused by Battlefield 2042’s lackluster performance.
EA also briefly mentioned NFTs during its earnings call, stating that it won’t be something the company is “driving.” EA CEO Andrew Wilson isn’t ruling out EA dipping into NFTs in the future, but he’s probably distancing himself from them due to the recent controversy surrounding publishers like Team17 and Ubisoft. If the reaction to NFTs softens, EA is likely to join them as well.
To say that Battlefield 2042 had a rocky launch would be an understatement. The game launched with bugs, a lack of content, and a whole host of features that Battlefield-class games require, like a scoreboard, for example. It has even been rumored recently that EA is planning to make the game free-to-play in an attempt to win back some of its shrinking player base.
In fact, Dice has recently announced that the first season of the game has been delayed until the summer, presumably so that the developers can work on fixing the game and the issues that are currently irritating players.