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Electronic Arts gives earnings report, highlights sales of Battlefield 1 and FIFA 17

Battlefield 1's player base was 50 percent larger than Battlefield 4's during its launch period.

January 31, 2017 2:34 PM

Electronic Arts disclosed its earnings report for the quarter ending on December 31, highlighting the success of several games and commenting on sales of digital games.

Executives proclaimed Battlefield 1 "the biggest Battlefield launch" ever with a player base that was 50 percent larger than Battlefield 4's active users during its launch period in 2013.

While EA did not disclose a concrete sales number, research and analytics firm told investors earlier this week that sales of Battlefield 1 hovered around 18 million. Representatives from the firm added that Titanfall 2 could "struggle a bit" to hit six million units sold.

Shooters aside, FIFA 17 stood tall as the best-selling console game in the world. No sales data was provided. The company did say, however, that over 10 million players went through FIFA 17's "The Journey" story mode.

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes also performed well, with active player engagement time reaching a record high of 155 minutes per day.

In terms of overall performance, EA reported $1.15 billion in revenue for the third quarter, a slight increase from $1.07 billion during the same quarter last year. The company posted a loss of $1 million. On the bright side, that's far better than the $45 million loss it suffered at this time last year.

Executives anticipate net revenue to reach $4.8 billion for the fiscal year when the FY ends on March 31.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson lauded the company's portfolio of games released during the third quarter of the fiscal year, and expressed his enthusiasm for what the company has coming up.

"With the top console games and most-downloaded mobile portfolio in the industry for Q3, Electronic Arts is growing, engaging and exciting a global community of players," Wilson said. "We will continue to push the boundaries of play, with stunning new titles like Mass Effect: Andromeda, global competitive gaming tournaments and more amazing experiences coming in the year ahead."

David Craddock

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.

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January 31, 2017 2:34 PM

David Craddock posted a new article, Electronic Arts gives earnings report, highlights sales of Battlefield 1 and FIFA 17
- Beady
  
   reply
  January 31, 2017 2:46 PM
  
  Their insistence on using an opaque "player base" figure instead of sales does kinda indicate BF1 didn't sell as well as BF4.
  
  BF4's playerbase was probably down during the initial launch period because it was utterly fucking broken.
  - derelict515
    
     reply
    January 31, 2017 2:49 PM
    
    on the other hand they may have realized that retention is a better metric than initial sales in terms of both predicting success for the next product and in terms of how to monetize the game post launch with DLC and other things
    - daggot
      
       reply
      January 31, 2017 4:57 PM
      
      That's a valid point. I've run into that being late to the party before. Finally breakdown and get a game, but then no one is playing it anymore.
- Mad Brahmin Disease
  
   reply
  February 1, 2017 8:27 AM
  
  Did they say the Battlefront X-Wing PSVR experience downloads were in the hundreds of thousands and that they would make an own game or add a whole VR campaign to Battlefront 2?
  
  Please?