During Electronic Arts' quarterly financial conference call, chief executive officer Andrew Wilson talked about the closure of Apex Legends Mobile.
First of all, looks like the closing game isn't the last mobile Apex Legends experience people will be able to enjoy. Wilson explained that the developer learned a great deal and has "plans to reimagine a connected Apex mobile experience in the future."
Wilson explained the reasons behind the decision to close the game.
"This game was in development for a long period of time, as the expectation for the size and scale and complexity of mobile games continues to grow as the platform continues to mature over time. As we look at it, we really compartmentalize into a few key categories.
First, as you point out, this was a really good game built by really good teams, that won game of the year on both Apple and Android devices, which is an extraordinary achievement given the amount of games that are made, but a couple of things also were true inside of that. One is, there is a level of immersion and complexity to Apex gameplay in particular, which is very much about what Apex is about, verticality of gameplay and team-based play that didn't translate quite as well to mobile devices as we had hoped.I think we've learned a great deal from that.
Second is the game wanted to really engage the core deeply and it actually attracted a lot of new users which we think speaks volumes for the future success potential to franchise. It didn't retain the more casual user at the rate that we needed it to, and in a game that relies a lot on team play and competitive play, liquidity of the overall player base is really, really important as you think about the future experience for players over time.
And then third, I think the mobile market continues to be challenging. We launched into what was a softer mobile market, and with some changing and evolving player personalities as we move through."
He then provided more color on how the company plans to reimagine the Apex Legends mobile experience.
"So, as we think about this on a go-forward basis, we take those learnings and we apply the real strength, which is, we know Apex has incredible demand from both the core usersand new more more casual users. We know that we have the underlying ingredients to make it incredible game. We need to be thoughtful about the nature of the core game mechanics and the retention mechanics that we build into the game over time. And most importantly, as we look at the mobile market, the biggest new launches that are seeing the most success are the ones that are deeply connected to the broader franchise, where there's not always cross-play, but it's certainly cross progression and a feeling that they're part of a single unified community and a single unified game experience."
Lastly, he provided information on the cancellation of the Battlefield Mobile game, also hinting at the plans to reimagine the experience.
"Battlefield [Mobile] had also been in development for some time and was making good progress, given the construct of that game, it also was probably going to run into some of the same challenges, and rather than continue to push against that, we wanted to come back, take a breath, reset, and really think about the broader franchise strategy and allow the leadership to build a true cross-platform immersive game experience around a re-imagined battlefield in the future. Both of these things represent, strong learning opportunities for us. Both of these things, represent an ability for us, the company, to lean into great franchises in a way that the mobile market is more aligned to for the future."
If you're interested in Electronic Arts' quarterly financial results, you can read our dedicated article with all the details.
