There’s too much we don’t know
Here’s a statistic that isn’t necessarily indicative of performance or success or profit: BioWare’s Anthem has probably topped $100 million in digital revenue since its February 22 launch.
That’s the figure that analyst firm SuperData reports. By SuperData’s estimates, Anthem has made more than $100 million on consoles, giving it “an above-average download rate.” Additionally, Anthem has made an estimated $3.5 million from in-app purchases on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
There are a few reasons this doesn’t really matter. First, and maybe most important, market research firms are imperfect. They rely on sample sizes, educated guesses, and trends to form conclusions. It may not be wrong information but it’s probably imprecise information. We don’t know what kind of access SuperData has. Saying that Anthem is somewhere around $100 million digitally on two of three platforms paints an incomplete (and possibly skewed) picture of what’s really happening.
But, we also don’t necessarily know what EA expects of Anthem — and the publisher is the one who determines if a game is a financial success. In February, EA forecast six million sales over the first six weeks, although it didn’t attach a revenue figure. So, we don’t know how many lifetimes sales Anthem is sitting at, how many hundreds of millions of dollars that has generated, or how EA feels about it all. All these variables and so few answers.
Ultimately, SuperData’s report is kind of worthless. So why did I write this post? I’m not sure!
Worldwide digital games market: February 2019 [SuperData]
