Anthem’s launch sales fell under expectations, but digital sales broke records

Has become EA’s most successful digital game ever

BioWare’s divisive looter shooter Anthem may not be making waves at retail, but it’s been off to a great start digitally. During EA’s Q4 FY2019 conference call, the company shared that Anthem has quickly become its most successful digital game ever. While the physical sales have fallen below expectations, Anthem is anything but a flop.

This follows on from a trend that EA has seen with more users shifting over to digital copies than physical ones. According to EA, 49% of all game sales on consoles were made digitally during this fiscal period. That stat has raised the profit margin for digital games for EA, which it states now accounts for 75% of its business. Anthem is the biggest example of this switch yet.

During the conference call, CFO/COO Blake Jorgensen said, “We continue to invest heavily in Anthem, with developers working on game quality, content, systems and game mechanics. It’s great original IP and we’ve doubled down on the product.” The company then restated its commitment to the IP, saying that BioWare will continue to support and improve the shooter going forward.

Whether you want to accept it or not, it seems the games industry is fastly approaching an all-digital future. While I don’t foresee a scenario where physical games are completely eliminated, we’re likely going to see digital releases come out weeks or months before retail ones. With EA seeing such strong results for a game that many have written off, it only strengthens the idea that digital is the future.

Anthem launch sales didn’t meet EA expectations, but its digital performance broke records [VG 24/7]