BioWare’s Anthem was the fifth leading-promoting game in North America of 2019 up till the finish of August.
Sales of the troubled game came in at fifth spot immediately after Mortal Kombat 11, Kingdom Hearts three, Madden NFL 20, and Tom Clancy’s The Division two, according to statistics from the NPD Group by way of business analyst Mat Piscatella.
And that is probably to surprise several.
It is no secret that Anthem didn’t get the really like that EA and BioWare hoped it would. A longstanding list of core style challenges, bugs, server troubles and far more have kept the game from creating far more of a dent, and even immediately after the release of the extended-promised but poorly received Catalyst update points continued to appear quite grim. Ben Irving, a single of Anthem’s most significant champions at BioWare departed the studio, and some have gone as far as calling for the game to merely be place out of its misery.
In September, BioWare head Casey Hudson posted a weblog to confirm updates for Anthem are nonetheless in improvement, revealing “a major team” is operating on the game in each its Edmonton and Austin studios.
“While it is been excellent to see the neighborhood response to Cataclysm, I know there’s a lot far more operate to do to bring out the complete possible of the game,” mentioned Hudson. The games veteran also revealed that BioWare is operating on addressing Anthem’s basic challenges, but reiterated that this approach will take time. When that operate goes on behind the scenes, Anthem will continue to be updated with smaller sized options and new content material.
In Might, EA had also confirmed in a conference contact that Anthem’s sales had been beneath their expectations. Nevertheless, the game did break a single substantial record for the organization – Anthem was EA’s most thriving digital game ever, promoting far more copies digitally than any other game in organization history.
“We continue to invest heavily in Anthem, with developers operating on game high quality, content material, systems and game mechanics. It is excellent original IP and we’ve doubled down on the solution,” mentioned COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen at the time.
For far more on EA’s Anthem challenges, you can study Sherif’s scathing opinion piece: “If current history is any indication, why really should any individual trust EA to turn Anthem’s fate about?“