Why EA canceled Battlefield Mobile: Apple's IDFA changes and Battlefield 2042's botched laucnh

Industrial Toys founder Alex Seropian has opened up about the cancellation of Battlefield Mobile. This all led to Electronic Arts closing the studio earlier this year.

Seropian revealed new details about Battlefield Mobile and the end of Industrial Toys in a new interview with Mobilegamber.biz.

According to the games industry veteran, there were three main reasons why Electronic Arts decided to shut down the game prior to its global launch:

• Poor community reception of Battlefield 2042 that “cascaded a bunch of introspection”;
• Apple’s new privacy policy and IDFA changes, which made user acquisition much more expensive;
• The Apex Legends Mobile shutdown, which was supposed to be the next big thing for the publisher on mobile.

“So organics eroded away with 2042’s release, and paid distribution got an order of magnitude more expensive because of the IDFA rules,” Seropian explained.

Electronic Arts announced the shutdown of Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile in January. Discussing the factors leading to the game’s shutdown, Deconstructor of Fun cited oversaturation of the battle royale genre on mobile, unrealistic expectations from both EA and Tencent, as well as declining revenues on both iOS and Android.

At the same time, Electronic Arts decided to close Battlefield Mobile developer Industrial Toys, which it acquired in 2018.

The studio first started working on the game in 2020, increasing its headcount from the original 12-person team to around 120 people. “What we were building was competitive with what Call of Duty has in-market — not a small effort,” Seropian told Mobilegamer.biz.

Industrial Toys successfully did a soft launch but was unable to convince EA bosses to invest more money to launch the game globally. Seropian added that the studio’s approach was different from other developers of AAA mobile games, as the team wanted to create a “bespoke experience for mobile” rather than a project that would be connected to other titles in the franchises for PC and consoles.

Alex Seropian, best known as the co-founder of Bungie and one of the original creators of the Halo series, started Industrial Toys in 2012. Othe founding members included Brent Pease and game designer Tim Harris.

The studio has released two mobile first-person shooters in its Midnight Star series and then started a new chapter as part of Electronic Arts. After Industrial Toys was closed, Seropian launched his own podcast and is now formulating some plans for his future ventures.