Within 24 hours of Apex Legends releasing for all platforms, over 2.5 millions unique players downloaded and played the game. This was definitely a huge success for EA, and may shape the direction in which EA will take from here. Here are the things that it would prove to EA and its shareholders.
1) The ‘Games as a Service’ trend works
Recently, EA’s higher management had told the media that it “is in a position to lead” the Gaming as a Service culture. While this may not have gone down well with much of the gaming community, it has nonetheless been proven that such a model works, with numbers from Apex Legends indicating as such. This would give EA more incentive to continue the method of making players pay for microtransactions in order to get the latest and greatest from the game, and while it may still contain loot boxes (which to me is a massive no), the need to make games that are solely just fun, innovative and good looking are now higher on the pecking order than any other criteria. This brings me to my next point:
2) Games do not need a good storyline to have good sales
Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall universe, which already has lore and world-building behind it to push it forward. However, the game does nothing to advance the lore, perhaps relying more on the numbered titles of Titanfall itself to continue the world building. While games such as God of War and Kingdom Hearts 3 make their sales because of a good story, Respawn’s decision to exclude stories from the game have now been vindicated by the numbers that Apex Legends are now generating. What this would do to other AAA titles under EA, I cannot tell, but no longer is EA required to make a game with a long and drawn out story, perhaps saving more money for the company when it can completely cauterize the story department and pour its resources down another belly.
3) They are well equipped to take in a large amount of players
While the memory of Anthem’s server overloads had still not yet faded, EA decided to launch Apex Legends to quell concerns about Anthem’s inability to cope with player count. So far they have done a bang up job, with immense numbers of players joining the game and no major recounts of server crashing being reported. This would be the proof EA needs to show and assure its player base that it has server demands well in hand, and potentially other games under them will be able to handle the rigors of launch day player counts as well.
4) Other major gaming publishers will follow suit
It seems that the saturation of the Battle Royale gaming market has not yet reached its bursting point. While MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas) like DOTA 2 and Overwatch have finally shown signs of slowing down, the Battle Royale genre seems to still be going strong. The latest release of said genre has, after all, attracted such huge numbers, and while it has affected Fortnite’s number of gamers, the total number of players still playing the Battle Royale genre is still staggeringly huge. With the release of Apex Legends, EA’s share prices have soared nearly 20%, proving that the game is a major cash cow for the company. Such numbers are sure to turn heads for other companies who may wish to jump on the bandwagon, and thus begin a flooding of this type of game on the market; Activision already has, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 being another major Battle Royale game. Will Ubisoft continue from The Division, where they have a Battle Royale mode, and add one to The Division 2? Perhaps 2K games with the new Borderlands? Only time will tell.
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