Why is EA Games Shutting Down Apex Legends Mobile?
This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Collaboration and Competition. Check out the full article for more insights.
Earlier this week, EA Games announced its decision to cancel Apex Legends Mobile, a game it released less than a year ago to much fanfare.
The title had a solid release in terms of revenue, which I covered back in June, and according to EA, the cancellation was a result of not being able to ship updates at the right cadence.
But...
The title, which Apple chose as Game of the Year in 2022, earned nearly $5M in net revenue in its first month in the stores, according to our estimates. And that's net, meaning what EA got to keep after paying Apple and Google their fees.
That total grew a bit, to $5.5M, in June, but went on to decline every month after. It ended 2022 with about half the revenue and a very negative trend.
Apex Legends ended 2022 with an estimated $29M of net revenue. Call of Duty Mobile earns that in an average month, according to our App Intelligence
In other words, it just didn't work out...
Which is an interesting and also important development for mobile games. In the last few years, big studios have been perfecting their monetization strategies with some managing to squeeze more while others just annoy players.
What's also interesting is the speed at which this cancellation is happening. EA is removing the game from both the App Store and Google Play and has disabled new purchases.
While abrupt, this move can be seen as the other end of optimizing pricing. Ending a project is hard, but when the numbers just don't work out and there are other opportunities, this is a logical choice.
When you're evaluating your own apps and games, make sure to always look at the market and the competition. You might be seeing growth but competitors are growing faster, or the opposite. Hopefully the opposite. But it's important to keep track of!
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
