Anthem launch sales didn't meet EA expectations, but its digital performance broke records
Anthem's sales came in below EA's expectations, but it did break one important record for the company.
During EA's conference call revealing the results for Q4 FY2019, EA shared some impressive details about its digital business.
According to the company, 49% of all game sales on consoles were made digitally during the fiscal year. The digital-to-physical share has been climbing in favour of digital for a while now, and the biggest demonstration of that has, in fact, been Anthem.
EA revealed that Anthem was its most successful digital game ever, selling more copies digitally than any other game in company history. Overall, EA is very happy with its digital business, which now amounts to 75% of its profits.
The company also touched on the game's reception, saying that players criticised mission depth and variety. To that end, EA reiterated its commitment to Anthem, saying that BioWare will continue to improve the game and expand it with more content.
"We continue to invest heavily in Anthem, with developers working on game quality, content, systems and game mechanics. It's great original IP and we've doubled down on the product," said COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen.
Unfortunately, the call didn't specify - or even hint - at what some of the plans for Anthem might look like going forward, beyond promising more content and fixes.