When you stop to consider just how much people are disappointed with some of EA’s recent decisions, it really begs the question of how the hell do games like Star Wars Battlefront, Need for Speed and Battlefield remain so successful? The answer was always the same: an active and thriving player base.
As far as the Battlefield franchise is concerned, history has shown that EA was always thirsty for more success. In fact, they were more keen to release Battlefield 4, than they were concerned with how to fix Battlefield 3. The very first iteration of Star Wars Battlefront had tremendous potential, and yet the launch version had disappointingly little content. Things picked up several months later as they added more content. The sequel, Star Wars Battlefront 2, showed yet another bad business practice that arrived in the form of poorly implemented microtransactions.
Battlefield 1 had a slightly different path. The multiplatform FPS received a positive feedback from fans almost instantly, and the critics loved it too. Regardless, the multiplayer shooter appears to be losing players who are now leaving to play newer titles.
The official word from EA though is that they are well aware of the player base drop for Battlefield 1. According to the scoop, since launch (in 2016) the game lost approximately 65% of its total player base and is still going down. The publisher did release a wide variety of DLC, but it appeared to have made little difference.
So, what are things like for Sony’s console? Initially, Battlefield 1 boasted some 256,000 players active players, and now it has dropped to around 41,000, and that’s just PlayStation 4 gamers. Looking at the player stats from all platforms—PS4, Xbox One, and PC—the game’s audience dropped from 569,000 to 90,000 since launch.
Although EA did a fairly decent job with this game, it has become apparent that the Battlefield 1 player base is hungry for something new, and it will be interesting to see what’s in store for the franchise.
We assume that the publisher will reveal more during their own branded version of the E3 2018 press conference, EA Play. The event is scheduled to kick off at the following times:
June 9 – 11 am PT
June 9 – 2 pm ET
June 9 – 7 pm BST
[Source: GeeksUltd.com]
