Why neither the new Battlefront nor the Star Wars game license fit into Electronic Arts' strategy

Observing the massive surge of interest in Star Wars: Battlefront II is fascinating even outside its context. For us, it's an opportunity to discuss Electronic Arts' long-term strategy, understand the company's business priorities, and the types of games it aims to include in its portfolio.

Star Wars: Battlefront II

When on May 4th, the online player count for Star Wars: Battlefront II on Steam exceeded 5,500 concurrent users (CCU), many didn't give it much importance. Similar minor surges in popularity are observed annually in many games and other Lucasfilm-licensed products since this time coincides with Star Wars Day celebrations.

For instance, in May of last year, Battlefront II also saw its peak daily numbers briefly surpass 5,000 CCU. However, this time the user interest did not wane over time but instead continued to grow.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Steam version of the game has repeatedly broken its previous records, ultimately reaching 18,635 CCU on May 26th. This is approximately 1.7 times higher than the previous peak of 10,400 CCU, which was reached in January 2021.

Graph of peak online users for Star Wars: Battlefront II on Steam

It is noteworthy that the figures above are not especially indicative. The original release of Battlefront II was on November 17, 2017, but it only arrived on Steam in June 2020—nearly two months after the cessation of content support for the game. This was because, since 2011, Electronic Arts had been actively trying to develop its own service, EA Origin (now called EA Play). In the fall of 2019, the company returned to Steam with the release of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and over the following months added its older titles to the Valve store, including Battlefront II.

By that time, anyone interested had already played the shooter either on consoles or on PC through the EA Origin service, which was also required to launch the Steam version. So, where does this sudden rise in player interest come from now?

Apart from the Star Wars Day celebration and the logical 80% discount, there are three main reasons: