Much of EA’s revenue for the past fiscal year came from the publisher’s live services. In general, Electronic Arts cuts a good figure when it comes to last year’s figures.
A record year for the publisher
“Net bookings for live services grew 17% year over year to nearly $5.4 billion and represented more than 71% of our overall business,” said Chris Suh, Electronic Arts’ chief financial officer.
“Total game sales increased 34% to $2.1 billion,” Suh ​​said. It’s been a very successful year for the publisher. Apex Legends alone, one of the company’s most popular live service games, brought in approximately $1 billion in net bookings.
Live service games again accounted for around 70 percent of total business last year. Net bookings were $4.6 billion. “There couldn’t be a more dramatic illustration of how the business has evolved,” said EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jogensen at the time.
“For comparison, that $4.6 billion is equivalent to selling about 130 million console games,” he said.
The trend is towards live service
Live service games are becoming increasingly popular among gamers as well as publishers. With that in mind, Geoff Keighley hinted that there could be fewer blockbuster games at Summer Game Fest this year than in previous years.
Companies are simply set up differently today. “I mean, it’s more of a live service game. If I look at the landscape today, the most exciting stuff for me is coming from a lot of these independent studios or from venture firms, as opposed to the big, traditional publishers,” he said Keighley.
