EA: Star Wars Battlefront II Sales Fall Below Expectations, Microtransactions To Return Soon

While Star Wars: Battlefront II did pretty good business for Electronic Arts, the company has noted that it didn’t quite meet up to expectations, mainly due to the backlash from the controversial loot crate system. Even with its last-minute nixing, the publisher is still feeling the after-effects.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the game managed to sell nine million copies during the final months for 2017. That’s pretty impressive, but EA was expecting the game to sell ten million copies – and it’s below the 14 million units that the original game shipped back two years prior.

Blake Jorgensen, the chief financial officer for the company, noted that the company hopes that the game will sell an additional one to three million copies within the first three months of 2018.

But the company did note that revenue was lower than what the publisher was looking for, mainly due to the removed Microtransactions, which, again, were removed right before the game released. Jorgensen believes that the company “blames the controversy in large part” for Battlefront II‘s struggling sales.

That said, though, as much as fans would hate to see it, Jorgensen believes that the in-game Microtransactions will return “in the next few months.”

As far as what Disney thinks about that – who was reportedly the one that forced EA to pull the “loot box” system to begin with – CEO Andrew Wilson noted, “You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the press. We have a tremendous relationship with Disney and we have built some amazing games together, and we have been very proactive with that relation in the service of our players.”

He noted that he doesn’t expect any opposition from the company when it comes to reinstating the Microtransactions, but nothing’s been finalized yet. “We’re at a point where, when we make the decision that we have the right model for players and our community, I have no doubt that we will get the support of Disney on that.”

Now, as far as the gamers are concerned, they were outraged by the Microtranactions before, so…why would they change their mind now? Here’s hoping Disney has some say in this matter and does away with the idea of Microtransactions before they truly weigh down the game.

Star Wars: Battlefront II is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.