BioWare's Anthem was released to mixed reviews and has thus far been involved in numerous problems post-launch, but one bit of good news is that the game definitely sold well despite all the hardships faced.
According to SuperData Research, Anthem was actually involved in several key milestones that make it look like a financial success. First, it was the best selling game of February, with its official launch on February 22nd, earning Electronic Arts and BioWare $100 million in digital revenue. SuperData also points to about $3.5 million of that towards in-game spending, meaning the overwhelming majority of the revenue earned for Anthem came from initial sales over microtransactions.
NPD data was also positive, noting Anthem was the top-selling game based on physical sales data only, though numbers are unknown at this time. What is known is that at the end of February, Anthem was the second highest selling game of the year behind Kingdom Hearts III, which has reported over 5 million units sold in early February. Anthem has also become one of BioWare's fastest selling games upon launch, only being beaten out by Mass Effect 3 in 2012.
The news bodes well for BioWare and EA, which were projecting that Anthem would sell around six million units by the end of March.
Despite that positive early sales, however, one major problem is the lack of in-game spending, the lifeblood of a live service game. While at a seemingly impressive $3.5 million, it makes up a fraction of the revenue already earned for the game and may be too low to sustain further updates and content as the initial sales begin to wane. The current offers in the Anthem store include six random cosmetic items at a time, which rotate every three to four days.
The announcement of the new Elysium Caches, coming in a patch next week, will also give players the ability to earn all of those cosmetics, with the exception of Armor Sets, in-game as well, which may cut into in-game spending and overall revenue. The lack of armor sets has also become another controversy for Anthem players, who are hoping BioWare either release more armor sets or allow them to drop in the Elysium Caches.
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