If you had any doubts about the live service model in video games, you might want to check out EA's latest earnings report.
The third-party video game giant responsible for series like Battlefield, The Sims and Need for Speed has revealed Respawn Entertainment's battle royale FPS Apex Legends has now made $2 billion in earnings since its arrival in 2019.
What's perhaps most impressive, as highlighted by our sister site Push Square, is the fact the returns on Apex Legends are actually improving, as society returns to a post-lockdown state. In the most recent fiscal year, the game experienced a 40% increase in earnings.
EA expects the profits from this title to improve - with the release of Apex Legends on mobile devices next week. This sort income puts this live service title up there with popular mobile titles such as Pokémon GO, which has banked $5 billion in five years. Games like Genshin Impact are also reportedly making $1 billion a month.
Stephen Totilo of Axios further notes how EA generated $5 billion in total last year from live service games "and other" games, compared to the $2 billion its "full games" made:
"Only big-publisher gaming stat you need to know: $5 billion vs. $2 billion, That's how much revenue EA generated last year in live services ("and other") vs. full games, If you need a another: $4 billion vs. $1.6 billion (that's the prior year)"
Apex Legends is available as a free-to-download title on the Nintendo Switch. Have you contributed to these earnings? Leave a comment down below.
[source dotesports.com]
Comments 43
I haven't contributed to either figure and plan to keep it that way.
With FIFA gone, we'll see how it goes.
Please don’t become a trend, I don’t need the next big Mario game being bare bones and sold for free with purchasable levels and costumes. I don’t anticipate it will happen any time soon, but companies do like money, so it’s slightly worrisome… And why can I already see Namco gearing up to make a Castlevania battle royale, with added NFT micro transactions?
Soon companies like that will decide they only need to make addictive 'free' games with toxic micro-transactions rather than other genres. Good thing Nintendo likes to be behind the times.😀
"EA's Live Service Battle Royale Game" Did comicbook.com contribute to the title?
SQUARE ENIX: Interesting, me want those billion too.
Um, I play Splatoon, is that a live service? If not then I don’t think I’ve contributed to this trend..
These people don't come from the same generation as me and it's so obvious. If you support this BLEEP then you obviously grew up with it and know no different and that's all I have to say on the subject.
Yes it makes me angry reading this as you can probably tell.
@BenAV Same. Can't stand this garbage. Anything predatory is just toxic in my opinion and as a parent reading this makes me mad.
if I worked in the government sector that creates taxes, I would tax these types of profits very heavily.
@Clark2k Funnily enough I was just thinking the exact same thing.
They're a different market, people that want to play free games compared to gamers that play single player games (mario, zelda, etc). But some games kind of blurred them togethers, like genshin impact single player online games.
I want to play genshin impact on portable system though, it's nice to play it 60 fps on my iphone xr but it drain my phone battery fast, I hope nintendo release a new switch that can play genshin at 60 fps like iphones.
I love apex ok, but good lord are the micro transactions shady as hell, about 100 bucks to get a character only item for events, and the last one was a really crappy looking skin.
"Live service" and "always online": two terms guaranteed to turn me off from a game. Sure, those kinds of games can be amazingly profitable, but when a publisher puts out a game for free and it fails, it has failed spectacularly. The history of games as a service is littered with the corpses of failed rivals, and this will only proliferate, the more publishers try to compete for the same pool of money and time.
there's no fkn with the zerg.
especially if it's genshin's zerg or apex legends' zerg or mcdonald's zerg - absolutely unstoppable. if you don't have the zerg behind your bikes, ngmi.
@BenAV True that. The biggest red flag is once you started to investing in them free-to-play garbage, there's no telling when they'll throw away that garbage on the whole thing. Once they do, everything you build up in those will be gone along with the trash.
@NinChocolate
It has to have lots of microtransactions and seasonal passes where you pay for the privilege of unlocking limited time items that chain you to the game using FOMO tactics. This is reason why Fortnite and other live service are obsessed with crossover characters as they are the easiest bait for FOMO, this isn’t like Smash or Mortal Kombat where the barrier for Sora or Robocop is buying DLC, if you want to play as Spider-Man in Fortnite you have to pay for a battle pass then jump through a bunch of hoops in a limited time window and once time is up you’re **** out of luck which is why this is FOMO. This is part of Epic’s design they get guaranteed cash out of players that keeps them glued to the game even if the player fails to get what they actually want but by then the next tempting crossover will be dangled in front of them if only they just buy another pass…
Apex is great, but I hate the precedent this could set since EA as is think single player games are a relic of the past, despite the overwhelming success of their own single player games like Jedi: Fallen Order and It Takes Two. With a reworked FIFA on the horizon, I'm a bit concerned for how this'll all unfold.
This worries me for the future of gaming as a whole. I truly hope this doesn't become a trend. Sure it's good for them to make big money but it's not great for the consumer.
@SalvorHardin ya, that’s crappy. Hopefully doesn’t end up being in many Nintendo games..
Why do i get the feeling splatoon 3 will have a battle pass...
Whilst live service games can be hugely successful, everyone's time is finite so not many of these can be supported and for every Apex there is an Avengers or an Anthem. Not to mention that a large part of their earnings tend to be from a small percentage of the user base who are susceptible to their predatory monetisation
I hate to be that boring person, but all this weeks talk about the profits of big companies is disgusting, in fact Nintendo even had the gall to say they wanted to build closer relationships with their customer via Nintendo accounts. Understandable when those customers gave them all that profit, so do we hear discounts or for getting more back as they clearly don't need to make that much money. Oh no we don't, they went and gave it away to a shareholder who doesn't give a ***** about them.
Consumers should be benefiting from companies success not greedy people.
I can see why they are so popular with the younger generations. When you are a kid/adolescent you usually don’t have disposable income and with the only barrier to entry being a system, internet and if you so choose the occasional game currency, it’s super accessible. Plus since couch co-op is kinda dead this allows for social interaction in a format current younger generations are used to. How many of us grew up with only a few games and replayed them to death (or emulated for that matter or bought bootlegs)? I know I had to darn near put on a business presentation to get a game or two a year. So it makes business sense all around. Games that kids like are more accessible and the trickle drip gameplay loop of paying for loot/customization adds up. It’s arcades (quarter eaters) in another form. Companies are just following the trends, same as they did when arcades dried up.
That's bonkers. Very good game tho.
I mean well duh? You pay $60 for a game, beat it, and maybe beat it again in the future. That's it, you've got all you're getting out of it.
Games like Fortnite that radically change the basics of gameplay non-stop have a much longer appeal.
That said I spent $8 on Fortnite a year ago and still get the battle pass every month from that same purchase. At nearly 650 hours played it's by far the best money to time/enjoyment investment on the switch I've played.
I'll just shake my head without even reading the typical elitist comments above though.
I am basically a bot for games like this. I enjoy playing them for free and don’t care about skins. I hold my own but get bored with the repetitive nature of fps so I don’t pay anything. But I am there to shoot.
I love hearthstone, it’s the only game I’ve played for years on my iPhone. And it’s free
What’s in the “and other” group?
Animal Crossing, releasing in 2020, has generated just under $2B - likely with a fraction of active post-release development.
In case you are worried the EA model will take over - Nintendo fosters lifelong relationships while companies like EA milk existing code and squander goodwill.
Both viable options it is likely neither will "win".
Genshin Impact does not make $1B a month.
@dew12333 The shareholders are the literal owners of the company. They give profits back to shareholders because the shareholders own shares of the company. It is the responsibility of a company's leaders to provide value to the owners of the company. Nintendo is not a hippy commune co-op. Nintendo is a company designed to generate profit from customers.
All of the financial talk this week exists because they are releasing quarterly financial data - mandated by the SEC.
@Sonos I know all that thanks, but what came first, the chicken or the egg?
In this case - the chicken. If the chicken doesn't make delicious fried drumsticks for all the boys and girls to eat then they will simply find a cow to devour.
The cow being FIFA 2021 I suppose.
Can’t compete until the genres is over crowded and gamers move onto something else
If this becomes the norm for new games, then I’ll stick to retro gaming only.
There are loads of past games to play, more than anyone could ever play in a lifetime.
@Snatcher I'm in the same boat. I love Apex, but the only thing I paid for was the Lifeline Edition DLC (on both Switch and PC), beyond that, the few cosmetics I did get was from using the Apex coins from the Lifeline Edition, and just the free packs unlocked from playing.
Personally, never cared for most of the event skins in this game, aside from holiday themed ones (on PC, I have Lifeline's Christmas skin, and a Halloween weapon skin I won from a Halloween event).
@Sonos lol, but I was more referring to the chicken (consumer) or the Egg (the shareholder).
Me feeling the world is broken won't be solved in our conversation.
I don't play EA or f2p games but my gamer soul cringes....and my switch just crashed, as I booted up mario kart. We are simpatico.
@Platinum-Bucket with that amount it will become a mainstream!
@Platinum-Bucket I am afraid this will be the fate of Mario Kart. Some form of a season pass….I could see smash going this route too.
@Sunsy Yeah, it’s just too scummy for me, wile I also think they do a lot of things right for a ftp game, they mess it up by doing things like that.
@Snatcher Agreed, honestly, how they did the Lifeline edition is how I like paid versions of these games to be. Give you a skin for your main (Lifeline for me, but other Legends have their editions), a weapon, and 1000 Apex coins for $20.
Also, I love how the Xbox and PlayStation versions of the Lifeline Edition, includes the game... on an actual disc. I have Switch and PC, so I bought it as DLC.
@Sunsy Didn't know the box had an actual disc! Now I want a copy even though the game would probably be a very outdated version which is probably pointless but still! Got a Lifeline edition for the PS4 back on season 4 I think during a half priced sale. Bought Octane ed. on launch day for the Switch which I kinda regret since the Pathfinder ed. is so much better, but I'm obviously an Octane main lol. Never spent any money on the limited time skins since you can craft them with materials earned from battle passes and events so you'd have enough for at least one or two if you save them up.
@Octane_st1m Yeah, it surprised me too, considering at the time the Fortnite Deep Freeze Bundle was just a code in a box. They released the Lifeline and Bloodhound Editions around the the same time (2019), and it included the game on a disc for those two versions on Xbox and PlayStation. PC was a code in a box (being a PC and Switch player, I got it as DLC instead of retail).
I don't know if the other editions had it, but those two versions had a disc. I don't own an Xbox or PlayStation, but I've seen unboxing videos of the Lifeline Edition that shows a disc.
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