Earlier this year, Electronic Arts stated that itexpected sales forAnthemto hit somewhere between six and eight million copiessold by the end of March. Many thought these projections were a bit high, while others seemed to think that they were potentially achievable. As we now know though, we now know officially that the game didn’t hit these benchmarks.
As divulged yesterday during EA’s financial call going over figures for Q4 of the past fiscal year, it was said thatAnthemdid not meet the publisher’s expectations. “The launch ofAnthemin Q4 did not meet our expectations,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson plainly. “However, we believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game – building a new IP and melding genres to reach a new audience.”
Despite coming in at thetop of the NPD sales chart for the month of Februaryand appearing infirst on the UK sales chart a couple of times, it still wasn’t enough forAnthemto perform in the way that EA hoped. You have to imagine that the game’s incredibly rough launch andpoor critical receptionwere the two biggest factors that ended up damaging things out of the gate with sales. Still, I’m left wondering just how close the game came to that 6 million floor despite all of the issues that plaguedAnthemat launch.
Even though the game didn’t meet expectations though, Wilson and EA said that they are remaining committed toAnthemand BioWare moving forward. “The team is now very focused on continued improvements to the game, and will then bring more content updates and in-game events that will enhance and expand theAnthemexperience.”
We’ll have to see howAnthemcontinues to grow as time goes on, but there’s definitely quite a bit of work to be done to drastically improve the core experience. As of now, the game is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
