EA just wrapped up their latest earnings report, and it was a mix of good, bad and strange news. The headlines aren’t great. Net revenue is down in Q4 in 2014, sitting at $1.12 billion as opposed to $1.21 billion in the same quarter last year. For the entire financial year, net revenue went down from $3.8 billion in 2013 to 3.58 billion in 2014.
All this data, or the lack of it, seems to point to a conclusion that Titanfall was something of a pretty big miss for EA and Respawn, despite almost universally positive reviews and word of mouth at launch. Yes, many players have been saying lately they put the game aside after a few weeks as it is a bit light on content, but I didn’t think an early drop-off time also meant the game had sold poorly.
EA keeping these numbers a secret seems like a worse play than coming out and saying “We’re proud of Titanfall’s 3 million sales to date (or whatever the number is), which is a great start for a brand new IP.” Instead, they’re treating what was supposed to be their new flagship game like they’re ashamed of it.
Update: Respawn told Game Informer that Titanfall sales numbers are “EA’s to distribute.” That is…an unusual response.
Update 2: Official response from EA to me is that they have nothing at all to add to the call regarding Titanfall sales.
This is interesting. TitanFall has been the most hyped game of quite some time, I wonder if sales fell like a rock after the pre orders and initial launch week. Of course this article is all presumption or supposition, but it could be yet another marker down the declining console game market road. The net revenue of EA being down from last year for the quarter despite Titanfall is telling, imho. King Kong should make a bigger mark when he walks....
Any thoughts?
