Dragon Age sales 50% less than expected as EA FC 25 sales disappoint-Michael Beckwith-Entertainment – Metro

EA Sports FC 25 was the UK’s best-selling game last year and it’s still not doing well enough for EA (EA)

EA has had a rough Christmas, with its two biggest autumn titles both significantly underperforming.

As one of the biggest independent publishers in the world (and one of the few left after Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard) EA is not used to sales failure but it seems the last few months have been rough, when it comes to sales of two its biggest new titles.

EA Sports FC 25 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed enough for the company to readjust its targets for the 2025 fiscal year, with the latter selling half what EA originally expected.

That’s going to put extra pressure on their upcoming slate, except that’s looking rather slim at the moment, with only Hazelight’s new co-op title Split Fiction, the new skate., and some MySims PC ports currently planned for this year.

EA will almost certainly have some Nintendo Switch 2 titles as well (new MySims titles were leaked by mistake last week) and it’s not clear when exactly the new Battlefield will be out but it looks like there’s going to be some tense boardroom meetings for the rest of this year.

According to their latest financial results, EA expects to have made about $2.2 billion (about £1.8 billion) in sales for their third financial quarter (October 2024 to December 2024), when it originally hoped to achieve around $2.4 billion to $2.55 billion (or £1.95 billion to £2.07 billion).

This also means EA has cut its expectations for the 2025 fiscal year. Originally, it was aiming to make $7.5 billion to $7.8 billion (about £6.1 billion to £6.33 billion) by the end of March, but that target has dropped to a range of $7 billion to $7.15 billion (about £5.7 billion to £5.8 billion).

Dragon Age fans will be disappointed to hear that EA isn’t impressed with The Veilguard’s performance. This was the first new entry from BioWare since 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it seems to have either not appealed to enough of the old fans or not attracted enough new ones.

EA says The Veilguard ‘engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter,’ which sounds impressive on its own. But EA adds that this is nearly 50% less than expected, meaning it hoped to have upwards of three million players.

It’s EA Sports FC 25’s underperformance that’s far more shocking, though. EA’s football games have long been one of its key moneymakers, but not only did the newest entry not meet expectations, EA blames a lack of growth in its Global Football business as the main culprit for its revised figures.

‘Global Football had experienced two consecutive fiscal years of double-digit net bookings growth,’ explains EA. ‘However, the franchise experienced a slowdown as early momentum in the fiscal third quarter did not sustain through to the end.’

This suggests sales for EA Sports FC 25 either haven’t been as strong as the last couple of entries, despite being the best-selling game of 2024 in the UK, or are only a slight improvement but still less than what EA wanted.

We won’t know any exact revenue numbers though, until EA shares its full earnings for the third fiscal quarter on February 4. In the meantime, CEO Andrew Wilson has expressed confidence that things will pick up for EA Sports FC 25 later this year.

‘This month, our teams delivered a comprehensive gameplay refresh in addition to our annual Team of the Year update in EA Sports FC 25; positive player feedback and early results are encouraging,’ says Wilson.

‘We remain confident in our long-term strategy and expect a return to growth in [the 2026 fiscal year], as we execute against our pipeline.’

EA Sports FC 25 is only the second entry in the series since the franchise abandoned the FIFA name. The first entry sold better than ever but fans have been frustrated with last year’s game after complaints of persistent bugs that suggest the game was released before it was finished.

Will things pick up before EA Sports FC 26 comes out? (EA)

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