EA Earnings Call: Battlefront 2 Campaign, New Bioware IP, and the rest

EA’s Third Quarter 2017 (fiscal year) Earnings Call is out. Here are the highlights regarding the games.

Bioware delivering ‘all-new IP’. EA claims “This game has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the way people think about an action title, bringing friends together to play in exhilarating new ways”.

‘New’ Star Wars Battlefront coming 2017 holiday season. Will include single-player campaign and span multiple eras. DICE, Motive, and Criterion are all working on the game.

New Need for Speed launching Fiscal Year 2018. Was given extended development cycle.

Battlefield 1 was EA’s biggest Battlefield launch ever. The player base is over 50% larger than Battlefield 4‘s when comparing launch quarters (this one isn’t broken).

FIFA 17 was the world’s top-selling console title in 2016. Over 10 million played “The Journey” mode and FUT players have increased by 10% “year-over-year”.

EA is quite happy with their eSports competitions and the extra engagement that brings to their games.

Titanfall 2 – EA claims they are happy with the “Player satisfaction scores” and are “excited about our long-term plans for the Titanfall franchise.

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (mobile) added ship battles and Rogue One content, “driving average gameplay time per player to an unprecedented total of 155 minutes per day”

Madden NFL Mobile is near the top of the iOS App Store charts.

The rest of the call focused heavily on profits and other ‘gross’ things (get it).

My take

The Bioware news is intriguing. Claiming to disrupt how people view action games and bringing friends together in exhilarating ways are bold claims. You have to wonder which team has been working on this game since 2012 if the assumed ‘A’ team has been developing Mass Effect Andromeda.  The new title is scheduled for a March 31, 2018 release.

With a beautiful engine already in place and three developers working on the sequel, Battlefront 2 could potentially deliver on expectations this time around. Although one of the best looking games of the generation, the gameplay and modes were shallow, offering much less than the previous Battlefront games released over ten years ago.

Now you’re as caught up as EA’s investors.