While a lot of players are having fun with Battlefield V, it seems DICE’s latest game isn’t doing as well as its publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), was hoping it would do commercially.

During the publisher’s quarter earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson, and EA COO & CFO Blake Jorgensen confirmed that the publisher was disappointed with the Battlefield 5 sales figures, and blames how single-player was prioritized over the battle royale mode which is scheduled to be released next month.

In August, we determined that we needed some more time for final adjustments to the core gameplay to fully deliver on the potential of the live service, so we moved the ship date to November to accommodate those goals. Unfortunately, the later release date meant the game launched deeper into a competitive holiday window where heavy price discounting was a big factor. In addition, we also made the decision to prioritize other features, including a single-player experience, at launch over a Battle Royale mode. This year, Battle Royale modes became incredibly popular in shooter games. As a result of these decisions, we struggled to gain momentum and we did not met our sales expectations for the quarter. – Andrew Wilson, EA CEO

We had high expectations for Battlefield V, we expected to grow our existing mobile titles and had anticipated launching two new mobile games. As Andrew outlined, it didn’t play out as we planned. We decided to move Battlefield V into a difficult launch window against heavily discounted competition 

The desire to make changes to Battlefield V led us to move its launch into a more difficult window, and prioritizing the single-player campaign over Battle Royale also hurt sales. As a result, we sold 7.3 million units in the quarter, about 1 million less than comprehended by our Q3 guidance. – Blake Jorgensen, EA COO & CFO

While this doesn’t sound well for the title, EA acknowledges that the franchise is “strong,” with the publisher counting on the live services game model to bring in more players to BFV over time.

Do you think EA’s reasons are correct as to why the Battlefield 5 sales figures aren’t up to snuff? Is it due to single-player being prioritized over battle royale? Bad marketing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

In other Battlefield V news, DICE has outlined some of the announcements set to come this week, which you can read about here.

Source: Seeking Alpha (login required)