Battlefield V has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. And it looks that trend isn’t looking to end as sales estimates indicate the game only sold 3.3 million units.
According to Super Data Research, Battlefield V only sold 1.9 million digital units.
“Battlefield V and Fallout 76 launches fail to meet franchise benchmarks. We estimate Battlefield V and Fallout 76 sold 1.9 million and 1.4 million digital units, respectively, across console and PC at launch. Both are down from Battlefield 1 and Fallout 4.”
Now Super Data Research only includes digital sales, and it is an increasingly prominent category as physical sales are losing market share every year. Statista reports that in 2017 physical games in the United States only made up 21% of market share compared to digital sales. Just 10 years ago, physical copies were 80% of the market.
That’s where VGChartz comes in. VGChartz looked at the first week of retail sales for Battlefield V and estimated that just over 1.4 million copies were sold in two days.
“Publisher Electronic Arts and developer EA Dice – Battlefield V – sold 1,404,974 units in two days at retail, according to our estimates. First week sales can be viewed on the VGChartz Global Weekly Chart for the week ending November 24.”
They also compared Battlefield V’s first week sales to other games in the franchise and it’s not a pretty picture with Battlefield V placing in fifth just ahead of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. It’s a far cry from Battlefield 3’s 4.68 million sales in the first week, and a significant drop off from Battlefield 1’s 2.8 million.
But the total unit sales might not be the worst news for EA/DICE. It was well-documented that EA/DICE were actually selling Battlefield V at heavily discounted rates during the holiday season.
As One Angry Gamer notes, during Black Friday sales, just a week after the game was released it was being sold for $29.99, the game normally retails at $59.99.
This wouldn’t be the only promotion for Battlefield V. On December 5th, EA cut the price of the game in half if you had purchased Battlefield 1, Battlefield 4, or Battlefield Hardline. The promotion ran up until December 20th and included Deluxe and Standard Editions.
It also appeared that EA/DICE was having troubles getting people to play the game, who had purchased it. In fact, they made a significant change to their Time To Kill values in a recent patch.
Here’s how Battlefield V Community Manager Dan Mitre explained the change:
“Although not extremely vocal within our deeply engaged community, we see from our game data that the wider player base is dying too fast leading to faster churn – meaning players may be getting frustrated with dying too fast that they choose not to log back in and learn how to become more proficient at Battlefield V.”
Is Low Sales a Surprise?
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has been following Battlefield V’s numerous debacles throughout the past year that their sales would be low. It all started during E3, when fans reacted to the initial trailer criticizing it for it’s lack of historical accuracy. EA/DICE thought it was a great idea to insult their fans. Former Chief Creative Officer Patrick Soderlund mishandled the situation and told fans who were not happy with the product EA/DICE was pitching to not buy the game.
This would just be the first of many missteps. EA/DICE would also begin censoring their chat function in the Open Beta. They would actually delay the release of the game, and even had a number of actual technical areas that needed work.
And maybe the most egregious error was during a launch party for the game, EA/DICE decided to mock their fans who complained about the game’s direction.
Official statistics will more than likely be released later this month or in the beginning of February when EA’s quarterly earnings report is announced.
What do you think? Has EA again stuck out with another major title? Or are the numbers too premature? Let me know what you think in the comments below!