Battlefield 2042's 'disappointing sales' drops EA's forecast by $100m

EA says Battlefield 2042's sales were "disappointing," executives say the sales miss will reduce its overall net bookings forecast by $100 million.

EA is aware of the Battlefield 2042 situation and acknowledges that sales have missed their expectations. The publisher says DICE's new shooter delivered "disappointing results," and while no actual sales figures were announced, the company talked up the game in previous calls with extraordinary confidence.

"Battlefield 2042 did not meet our expectations," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q3 earnings call. "Some of the decision choices that we made did not resonate with our community. We are fully committed to realizing full potential of the game and fully committed to our fans."

"Despite our Battlefield 2042 miss, we delivered record performance. We've adjusted our full year net bookings to $7.5 billion, up $200 million from last forecast. We expect strong growth to continue in FY23."

EA has adjusted its net bookings for FY22 to $7.525 billion, down $100 million from the previous forecast.

However EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said Battlefield 2042 will not impact FY23:

"Battlefield 2042 franchise would have accounted for significantly less than 10% of this year's bookings, and less than 5% of FY23's net bookings."

"We're going to refrain from unit sales. Battlefield is less than 10% of our revenue. Clearly we sold less units that we thought we would."

"Remember these games are long tails. Our goal is to add new content, new ways to play, new excitement to stretch this out."