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EA’s Star Wars games have been massively successful from a commercial perspective, as the publisher just announced that its various Star Wars games have collectively sold 52 million copies and generated $3 billion in revenue life-to-date.
During an earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the company has enjoyed a “long and profitable” relationship with Lucasfilm over the years, going back decades.
“We have generated a number of great franchises: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Galaxy of Heroes, Battlefront, Jedi Fallen Order, and most recently Squadrons. That represents over $3 billion life-to-date in net bookings and 52 million games sold.”
One of EA’s most successful Star Wars games is the mobile title Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, which itself has made $1 billion from its microtransactions. Mobile is the most important platform for EA, and these gigantic numbers for Galaxy of Heroes speak to that.
While EA’s Star Wars games have sold a lot of copies and drove a lot of revenue, EA pays Disney a licensing fee, which is sure to be substantial.
Going forward, Wilson said people should expect EA to “continue to invest” in the Star Wars brands it already has, while it will also develop “some new experiences across platforms in the future.”
Given the tremendous commercial success of the Battlefront series (33 million combined sales), a third game in the new series is presumably expected, while Jedi Fallen Order sold 10 million copies, which demonstrates that there is a business opportunity to make a sequel. While EA has had a lot of success with Star Wars, not all of its projects have worked out. The bounty hunter game Star Wars 1313 was canceled, while Uncharted director Amy Hennig’s action-adventure Star Wars game was also shuttered.
EA no longer has the exclusive rights to the Star Wars video game series, as the recently established Lucasfilm Games division is partnering with Bethesda and Ubisoft on new Star Wars projects. EA management said on the earnings call that the company is not afraid or concerned by the fact that it will soon have more competition in the Star Wars video game space.
