You almost never hear anyone talk about a disappointment in a discussion of the revival of the Star Wars franchise. But retailer GameStop did today, telling analysts that there’s been no sign of the Force behind sales of Electronic Arts’ video game Star Wars Battlefront, which was released on November 17.
“We had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer, and then it failed to hit those lowered expectations,” GameStop COO Tony Bartel told analysts. The comments, plus lower than expected financials for the quarter that ended in October, sent the chain’s shares down 4.2%. Electronic Arts shares fell 4.8%
GameStop isn’t giving up hope. “We expect Star Wars to be one of the strongest titles for the holiday season,” especially around December 18 when Disney releases Star Wars: The Force Awakens, CFO Robert Lloyd says. “So we expect it to get back towards on-track for our expectations.”
Bartel added that GameStop plans to push the title hard on Black Friday, and is “the only retailer that has it with significant discount, which is also going to guide sales.”
Some analysts say that the retailer’s experience shouldn’t worry those who are heavily invested in Star Wars Inc. The chain also said that it was disappointed in sales of two other recent releases: Halo 5 and Assassin’s Creed.
That may simply reflect the “significant, industry-wide increase in digital downloads so far this year,” Barclays analyst Christopher Merwin says. As a result, “it’s very likely that an increase in digital sales for Star Wars helped contribute to the lower-than-expected physical sales of the title for GameStop.” He still expects Electronic Arts to sell 13 million copies of the game in the fiscal year that ends in March.
Cowen and Co’s Doug Creutz shares the view that GameStop is suffering from competition from digital downloads. It’s “unlikely to us that what amounts to a buyers strike is really going on amidst the most powerful hardware cycle on record,” he says.
Sales at Amazon suggest that demand for Star Wars Battlefront “remains robust and that the game should hit or exceed” 13 million for EA’s fiscal year.
Why? Well, consider what’s staring everyone in the face: social media popularity. Star Wars has 15 million “likes” on Facebook. Harry Potter has 73 million likes. Hunger Games has 22 million likes. Twilight has 47 million likes. Shrek has 45 million likes. Theoretically, Star Wars should have the most, given that its fans are older and lean toward technological early adopters. But it lags way, way behind any of the others. It’s just one indication that maybe Star Wars isn’t THE BIGGEST MOVIE EVER MADE, as its breathless marketing seems to imply.
I have no doubt the new movie will be big. Huge, even. It will definitely be worth watching to see if bad winter weather and increased terrorism warnings cut into its earnings, though, not to mention its weird release date with just two weeks of vacation time.
Add to that a simple search you can do on your own. Look up any city other than Los Angeles or New York on AMCTheatres.com or Fandango and check for tickets for “Star Wars” on Dec. 19, the day after its official opening. You’ll find PLENTY of tickets.
None of that is to say that “Star Wars” won’t be a massive hit. Is it the one movie that everyone in the world is waiting for, that is the most-anticipated movie ever, that is living up to the incessant, overbearing hype that Disney is bringing to it? I don’t know, but if it doesn’t hit $1 billion at the U.S. box office (and, to play it both ways, let me say — hey, it could!), it will be seen as nothing other than some sort of bizarre disappointment.
I’m not at all surprised at these Battlefront numbers. A mere “hit” is not enough for Disney on this one, given the ridiculous expectations they have set.
A billion domestic? So it’s only a hit if it out grosses the #1 film of all time by more than 20%?
Yes
No film has ever broke $1 billion domestic. Avatar was the closest with $760MM. Meanwhile, only 4 other films have broke $500MM. So, I seriously doubt that 1 billion will be the disappointment barrier.
They’re probably aiming to break $600MM and join the ranks of Jurassic World and the first Avengers.
With a negative of $250-275 (everything I’ve heard from the Presidio backs this up) and domestic marketing costs of $200-$250 at a bare minimum, we’re looking at somewhere in the $450 to $525 range for production and marketing. Taking into account the exhibitor split, that indicates a $750 million to $900 million gross will be the minimum required for a real break-even on this picture, not counting gross profit participants (of which there are many), which means this will probably NEED to be touching $1 billion to enter the realm of actual profit.
$1 billion worldwide is beyond a guarantee. You’re also forgetting home video and streaming, merchandising and amortization across the sequels. To even joke about this movie not being profitable is beyond laughable.
You’re argument is invalid
http://www.etonline.com/movies/149237_19_films_that_have_made_over_1_billion/
I think an explanation for this would largely be that although the Prequel Trilogy are okay, they were nowhere near great or amazing. People saw them for the name , leading to huge ticket sales, but they had no true depth or substance, and hence, not a cult or social-media following. The people really following Star Wars are Old Trilogy folks, and most of them garnered before the advent of social media, obviously. Now consider the upcoming films. If they turn out similar to the Prequel Trilogy, the likes likely won’t rise. However, if they resonate with the majority of viewers, you’ll see the likes skyrocket as people now have a new movie to chat about.
Your saying there is no cult or social media following with the prequel trilogy? Look at the last 10 years, it was Clone Wars everything with star wars. From video games to Television they milked it for what its worth, not as good as the original trilogy in my opinion but still The Clone Wars era developed its own cult following with The Republic and The Separatists.
Titanic knocked Star Wars off as Perennial champ with around 2.2 billion current dollars. Avatar did about 2.7 billion WW current dollars. Given this unprecedented hype and awareness, it certainly needs to beat titanic and probably Avatar. Doubt it.
No, you’re wrong on both counts. 1) The avatar number is the 2010 number, not today since it doesn’t include inflation. 2) it’s not going to be a disappointment when SW doesn’t make more than titanic and avatar.
Shut up you suck man have you seen the sale tickets it shut down servers idiot and Facebook is for only young teenage girls and quite guys so who cares what Facebook says
Go home, son, your momma’s calling.
For about 10 minutes they shut down the Fandango server. Just go online and look up tickets for any showing pretty much anywhere in the U.S. outside of 7 p.m. on 12/17 or 7 p.m. on 12/18. You’ve got plenty of seats available. PLENTY.
most star wars games have been very dissappointing. They just sell the name on most of them.
The Force Awakens has pre-sold over 50 million already. That’s way more than any movie ever..
Technically, star wars (the original) is the 2nd biggest movie of all time. You have to account for iinflation. Gone with the wind is #1. It’s ridiculous and silly to try to compare movies by how much money they make when one ticket today costs 20 times as much as a ticket long ago and people make exponentially more money just as a result of inflation. Otherwise, a list of movies would show one that was 10 times more successful than another as being well behind it. I’d show a link with a list of the most successful movies after being adjust for inflation but I don’t know how they feel about links to other sites here so I’d suggest looking it up. The original star wars movie was an epic success to say the absolute least and certainly no other star wars cane close. Nor do I think another one will, but I suspect this one will outsell those awful prequels.
My son bought this on pre-order last Tuesday, and he returned it with a loss of 20 bucks today. He said it was boring and just not interesting. He never has done that before. They are trying to sell like a 2nd half to the game soon for another 50 dollars and you have to pay to play other people online. It feels like they released half a game and it feels scammy how they did it.
Laura,
I purchased the game for myself, and feel ripped off as well. It’s a fun game, but I do feel ripped off considering the game essentially consisted of four multiplayer maps.
I preordered also and returned a few days ago. Simply it just wasn’t worth the money for just some stunning visuals. We want extended game play and not just four maps that really don’t portray the effort that had been proposed. To me it looks like the project manager looked at their timeline and said we need month in market prior to movie launch to leverage sales, and then someone in Marketing says, and and we can charge 50% premium as a season pass to provide you what we couldn’t deliver in the first place.
The reason that the sales were sub-par are for a wide variety of reasons;
1) The release of fallout 4 came out one week prior, which was one of the most anticipated games of the past four years.
2) The price. EA is asking players to fork out 60 dollars for essentially four multiplayer maps with limited single player and EA asked for another 60 dollars for a “season pass” which includes unreleased content that the player base feels should have been included with the sale. Sales of the game will go up when the price drops substantially.
Bingo! (a) Fallout 4, and (b) price-gouging are the two big culprits, and I’ll add (c) mediocre game play, and (d) a gamer fan base that is less impressed with the Star Wars franchise than their parents might be.
No single player campaign. Star Wars fans don’t necessarily cross over with Battlefield and CoD fans.
Bingo! I canceled my pre-order as soon as I learned there was no story mode. Multiplayer battles are fun, and I do enjoy them. But my primary interest is the single player campaign — especially in a story-rich world like the Star Wars universe. This was just an EA money grab. Happy to hear it didn’t work out as planned.
Online only game sees retail store slump? Not terribly surprising, the only people who wanted Battlefront at Gamechurn were those who pre-ordered for some specific reward. Otherwise just download it.
The reason for the failure behind Star Wars: Battlefront is obvious: EA Games gave us a barebones Star Wars game that requires you to buy a $50 Season Pass just to get additional content and buy another $60 annual online subscription just to play Multi-player. There’s also NO story mode in the game so the maps get boring real quick. What SHOULD have been an easy GAME-OF-THE-YEAR for EA has turned into blatant HIGHWAY ROBBERY and it’s a huge letdown for Star Wars fans. The Force is definitely not with this one.
it look like a good game early on this year ,then it came out and we see it was made seven year olds
So no one read the article where it states that digital sales are healthy and that EA will still sell 13 million copies. Idiots.
It appears from the comments below that EA is following the business strategy based on games for tablets and phones. Get the game and them keep buying content as you go along which sucks for consumers who dont have a bottomless bank account to spend on games.
“Buyers’ Strike” — that is the single stupidest euphemism for the customers not liking the product that I’ve ever seen come out of the mouth of any business analyst regarding any product ever. If the customers don’t like the product, that isn’t a strike (note: customers aren’t employees), it’s the customers always being right and refusing to pay for a bad product.
It’s actually accurate. There’s been a huge backlash against this game from consumers once news came out about EA’s pricing model and the gameplay. Consumers are growing weary of the practices of AAA gaming companies nickel & diming them, and many are refusing to buy out of protest. Your point is of course extremely valid but a “Buyer’s Strike” also has some credence to it.
A: The fact that it is boring.
Basically said: EA wont tell us the selling numbers because they will be below the 10 mil line. Bethesda on the otherhand can confirm a solid 50+ mil sold and more inbound. EA you are abysmal. 2 years and you give us a shiny piece of shit. If it didnt had the Star Wars logo it wouldn’t have sold a single copy.
I’ll tell you what caused low sales! FALLOUT 4 BABY!
On top of that news comes this incredibly lackluster review of the new Star Wars area at Disneyland that apparently feels more like a cheap marketing gimmick. Keep in mind, these are massive Disney fans writing this review. And they don’t think it’s very good. Disney is already showing its need to strip mine this property as QUICKLY as possible and go in for the fast buck, something Uncle George and his lackidaisical way of making his movies was not guilty of.
http://micechat.com/115754-star-wars-season-of-the-force/
It’s a really hollow game, considering that the first two Battlefront titles featured a dozen-plus maps, several fun modes of play, and most importantly, a single-player campaign in which you could play a dozen or more different maps with dog fights. This Battlefront is a shell, forcing online play, just because… and with nothing to stand on outside of that. It’s a real sad money-grab from what should be the third in a formerly-increasingly-good series. It doesn’t do the series or the fans any justice. I’m just going to wait for Battlefront II to come available on backwards compatability hahaha!
To be fair, the “Campaign” in the original battlefront consistented of five things: go to the point, capture the CP, destroy something, kill this guy, and capture the flag. Basically fancy instant action.
I would rather give the taliban my business than buy it from GameStop. They are total crooks by every shape imaginable. I bought it as a digital download from the playstation Store. One less penny that GS gets from me.
So many comments, and only one or two actually follow the gaming industry and culture and know what they’re talking about.
Back on Topic: One of the reasons likely why Gamestop saw disappointed ‘Star Wars Battlefront’ sales was their preorder incentive was a poster…not a $10 – $25 gift card or rebate. (Dell – $25 store gift card, Everywhere else $10-$20 store gift card)
If you’re paying MSRP on videogames, gaming subscriptions, and season passes…and complaining about it, you’re doing it wrong.
RipOff ! Make you pay to play multi player. no review told any of us you have to join play station plus to play multiplayer. Dirty trick to get more money from us.
You have to join playstation plus or xbox live to play ANYTHING online. EA shouldn’t have to say that. It is a well know fact with the current generation of systems.
That’s pretty much common knowledge unless you are brand new to the whole console gaming scene. Little bit like saying “I bought a computer but NOW I HAVE TO PAY FOR THE INTERNETS!?!”
I was excited but then of course I realized EA was the behind the game and lost all interest. EA has, IMO, been responsible for ruining some of my favorite game series ever. They are the corporate monsters that only care about the money and force these developers they’ve snatched up to alter or release games in their manor rather than their own.
After the debacle dragon age Inquisition was on the PC, I realized i would never buy another game that EA had anything to do with, which is sad because I was really looking forward to battlefront and mass effect 4. Oh well, I speak with my wallet.
Another issue I have in particular with battlefront is no single player campaign what so ever. I get it, i’m an older PC gamer and i’m not as into these frag fests that the younger ADHD kids. I’m also not willing to spend money on half a game. When I was gaming almost 2 decades ago, multiplayer modes were either non existent or shoehorned onto games and the single player campaigns had lots of work put into them. Games like quake and doom etc were both great single player and multiplayer games. Then games like unreal tournament and quake arena started coming out with multiplayer only modes and idiots still bought these half games and now its half the games that come out these days.
Oh well, at least I still have Besthesda that hasn’t sold out yet…..
Even if you buy the game at the store you still needed to download the game via Origins (game client) so I guess alot of PC players just bought it from origins and pre-loaded for the midnight lunch
It’s sales are bad because the game is bad. In an attempt to be accessible, Battlefront is boring and shallow. It forgets the most important factor of a game…gameplay. I sincerely hope EA/DICE finally learns it’s lesson.
Pretty simple reason: EA is a scumbag company! I wonder when I sit down to watch the Star Wars movie if they will stop after 15 minutes and ask for another $60 to watch the rest? That’s all this scam of a game does. Funny how not ONE ad or trailer or review even mentions this scam…
they needed single player solo missions a la COD, Halo etc
multiplayer only is really lame
Because Gamestop is a joke…Amazon is the main place people buy a game now. Take 15 games that were $60 each at one time and GS wants to give you $15.00 …take a hike