With Star Wars, EA has one of the most sought-after licenses in all of entertainment, and the company plans to take full advantage of it.
In a “fireside chat,” EA executives spoke about how the company plans to “double down” on Star Wars after the huge success of Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, Galaxy of Heroes, and Jedi Fallen Order more recently.
“Up is my hope–up and to the right,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said about where he hopes the company will take Star Wars in the future. “We have a tremendous relationship with Disney. We have a tremendous relationship with Lucas. We have a longstanding relationship with them going all the way back to Star Wars The Old Republic that we launched in 2011.”
Wilson called out Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2 as top-performers from EA’s partnership with Disney on Star Wars. Those games have combined to sell around 35 million copies, he said. Wilson added that the mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes has enjoyed “extraordinary” success, and it continues to perform well. Additionally, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order sold 10 million copies to stand out as another big success.
EA’s next big Star Wars game is Star Wars Squadrons. A dogfighting game, Squadrons is going after a smaller market than Battlefront or Jedi Fallen Order, Wilson said. EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said the company is not planning to disclose its sales projections for the title.
Even if Squadrons doesn’t sell as well as EA’s other Star Wars games, Wilson said he’s happy about the breadth of games that EA has created from its partnership with Disney and Lucas.
“We’ve had success in first-person shooters, in RPGs, in action adventure, in MMORPGs, in mobile, and I believe we’re going to have success with Squadrons as well,” Wilson said. “We’re going to double down on that partnership. Disney continues to be very very committed to the IP and to the canon.”
Wilson added: “We’ve got the combination of great IP, great development expertise and experience and success from us across genres, across platforms, across business models. And we’ve got new generations [of fans] coming to the IP all the time. So our expectation is we think there continues to be a really really strong opportunity in an around that relationship and that IP going forward.”
Read more here. The next Star Wars game from EA, Star Wars: Squadrons, will be released later this fall on October 2nd for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One (crossplay across all platforms is supported) and offers several pre-order bonuses. For more information and to pre-order your copy, visit the game’s official website.
