EA is focused on long-term sales for Titanfall 2: 'It's not about first day or first week sales'
The publisher and developer have lots of free content in the pipe to keep players engaged.
Early prognostications from one analyst claimed Titanfall 2's launch sales would be "substantially disappointing" due to being sandwiched between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, but Electronic Arts and Respawn are more focused on the long game than short-term gains.
"We remind people we're building a franchise with Titanfall, so it's not about the first day of sales or the first week of sales, it's about the long run," said EA CFO Blake Jorgensen at a conference in San Francisco earlier today (via GameSpot). "We'll do a lot of things with Titanfall to continue to build engagement."
One of those initiatives is releasing oodles of free DLC for Titanfall 2 in 2016 and beyond. EA and Respawn forewent a season pass in favor of making all maps and modes free to ensure no one would be left out.
Notably, EA has not disclosed sales numbers for Titanfall 2's first week. That, in conjunction with the game already dropping to half price at some retail outlets, could be construed as fuel for the fire. But that's coincidence, merely part of early Black Friday sales and a clever way to grow the user base quickly.
EA and Respawn maintain that Titanfall 2's seemingly doomed release date was set in stone long ago, and designed to work in conjunction with Battlefield 1 to offers as many players as possible diverse flavors of shooting—and, naturally, steer them away from Activision's Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.
Lest doubters speculate that Titanfall 2 marks the end of Respawn's franchise, EA says otherwise: the developer-publisher tandem plan to work on Titanfall games for "many years to come."
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replyDavid Craddock posted a new article, EA is focused on long-term sales for Titanfall 2: 'It's not about first day or first week sales'
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Suuuuuuure they are.
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They shot themselves in the foot by having this release within a week of both Battlefield 1 (a franchise that THEY PUBLISH) and Infinite Warfare/CoD4 Remastered. It makes me wonder, are they trying to kill off the Titanfall franchise so that the talent at Respawn Entertainment can be dedicated to some other project? I don't get it.
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Because most people can finish the SP campaign within a weekend due to it being so short?
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I think they should release this game in spring/summer time. Avoid the BF/COD competition in during the fall and winter and show gamers a fresh taste after they've played the others for around 6 months. I know they want Holiday sales but yeah doesn't help much when you're against some of the biggest blockbusters in the market.
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Give me $40 +/- 2 and I'm in.
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It's really interesting to see investor articles on EA still mention big Titanfall 2 sales as a possibility that could bump profits, as if analysts missed the easy-to-find news around its launch performance and number of active online players. I think that horse has bolted, although maybe it will do a R6 Siege and slow burn to profit.
Investor news circles are different to gaming ones I guess. -
People need to stop being so negative about this and just buy the game, it's really fun (although a bit slower than Titanfall 1) and you can easily find games
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Can't wait for the influx of newb fodder.
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I'll probably pick it up. I missed out on the first Titanfall because it released the same day as Dark Souls 2. -_-
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Siege did it.
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I don't get why so many people are surprised by the early price drops since this happens every year. It's silly to buy most games brand new in October or November since the holiday price drops start in mid Nov and go apeshit over the next six weeks. It's been this way for years and it's why I skipped a lot of the major games over the last few months. No sense in paying $60 for something I'd be able to get for $20-$30 before the new year.
Glad EA is pushing the long angle on this, even if it's not really characteristic of most major publishers (especially themselves). I think it's a healthy viewpoint and the absence of a season pass is a great step in the right direction toward growing the fanbase over time. I don't think we'll see the same happen for any future titles in the series..if anything, they'll just change the release window for future games to a less competitive slot. This year was all about snowjobbing Call of Duty and capatilizing on consumer fatigue to siphon players off, the next iteration will be all about making dope $$$.
Hope it works out for them, I really do. The word of mouth on this game is terrific and I love seeing competition in the market. Except in the Toys to Life market, anyway. There's no competition there, there's just Lego Dimensions fucking bulldozering the shit out of the place while Nintendo and Activision clutter the shelves with toys. -
Didn't active player numbers for the first edition quickly fall off? How do you sell a game long term when people don't play it?
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No, it's a good game worth $60 or $30 or whatever price it settles at in the next couple months. The game will be supported. People will still be playing. Sure, it could have sold more, but for the players, there's nothing wrong with the current situation.
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A free weekend then, or a timed demo. I don't think a variation on free to play is the right approach.
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On last week's BombCast, Jeff had an interesting theory about EA releasing BF1 and TF2 so close to one another in an attempt to stamp out CoD once and for all. Even suggesting they will use TF2 as a "loss leader" by reducing the price early on and not having any paid DLC or season pass. EA has already announced that they see TF2 as a long term property so maybe they're getting this one in player's hands to establish a user base and then going back to their usual shenanigans when TF3 rolls around.
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That makes sense. In a way, Titan2 is the first "real" Titanfall. The first one did well critically, but attracted a fraction of its possible user base due to being exclusive to Xbox One, which was emphatically in last place at the time.
Being a multiplatform game, Titan2 will be many players' first exposure to the franchise. It's a good base to build from: varied multiplayer modes, a solid single-player campaign, and a type of movement and combat different enough from BF1's and COD's military-centric systems to stand out. -
How has it worked? Has COD sold well?
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No idea yet, but popularity has been on a pretty steady decline for a while now and it seems like people are enjoying the campaign more than the multiplayer this time around.
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has any SP expansion content been announced? I'm not finding MP to be all that great but had a blast in the SP.
