Titanfall 2 – The Sinking Ship
It has been widely reported that despite the positive reviews, including a stellar score from us, Titanfall 2 sales have been dreadful. Earlier this week we told you about a deal where you pick up Titanfall 2 for PS4 for $29.96 USD. That is basically half the regular price. Deals for Titanfall 2 have been surfacing all over the place and it doesn’t look like this will change any time soon. This doesn’t come as a complete shock either. Even ahead of the October 28th launch date, research firm Cowen & Company predicted a substantially disappointing result citing the unfortunate release timing. They said:
“We think the game got squeezed between Battlefield 1 and [Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare]. We suspect EA believed that by launching two shooters next to Call of Duty it could put a large dent in its biggest competitor, but instead EA appears to have wound up shooting its own foot off.”
Titanfall 2 debuted at the ninth spot on the sales chart in the USA and at the fourth spot on the sales chart in the United Kingdom. This suggests that in November, the game might easily slip off the former and possibly even off the latter’s Top 10 chart. For a AAA game to fall so drastically this early is horrific news for EA.
There are other worrying indicators. For instance, Respawn’s second game now sits only at the 23rd spot of the most played Xbox games according to Microsoft’s own store, which is even more shocking when you consider that the first Titanfall was an Xbox console exclusive. Where did all those fans go?
Another huge red flag is all the discounts. You know there’s something wrong with the sales of a product when its price is cut substantially in a short time after its launch. Just three weeks after its debut, Titanfall 2 can now be purchased for almost half price on multiple platforms and it’s not even Black Friday yet, when prices might get even lower.
The official Xbox store is now selling the standard edition to Xbox Live Gold members at $35.99 (from $59.99), the Deluxe Edition at $47.99 (from $79.99) and the Battlefield 1 – Titanfall 2 Deluxe Bundle at $75.00 (from $149.99). But PC gamers got an even better deal through Electronic Arts’ own Origin store. The standard edition and the Deluxe Edition are already 33% off by default, but you can add another 20% discount by using the code TITAN20. This will bring the price of the standard edition down to $32.99/€31.94/£26.65, effectively half of the original launch price. You can use it to buy the Deluxe Edition and get the very same discount, by the way. On Amazon the game is discounted as well.
This is great news for those looking to play a new and fantastic game at a discounted price. But terrible news for EA and the development team looking to recoup some of their losses and awful news for the future of the franchise.
Have you played the game yet? Tell us in the comments below.