EA’s Live Service Battle Royale Game Has Now Generated $2 Billion In Earnings

If you had any doubts about the live service model in video games, you might want to check out EA’s latest earnings report.

The third-party video game giant responsible for series like Battlefield, The Sims and Need for Speed has revealed Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale FPS Apex Legends has now made $2 billion in earnings since its arrival in 2019.

What’s perhaps most impressive, as highlighted by our sister site Push Square, is the fact the returns on Apex Legends are actually improving, as society returns to a post-lockdown state. In the most recent fiscal year, the game experienced a 40% increase in earnings.

EA expects the profits from this title to improve – with the release of Apex Legends on mobile devices next week. This sort income puts this live service title up there with popular mobile titles such as Pokémon GO, which has banked $5 billion in five years. Games like Genshin Impact are also reportedly making $1 billion a month.

Stephen Totilo of Axios further notes how EA generated $5 billion in total last year from live service games “and other” games, compared to the $2 billion its “full games” made:

“Only big-publisher gaming stat you need to know: $5 billion vs. $2 billion, That’s how much revenue EA generated last year in live services (“and other”) vs. full games, If you need a another: $4 billion vs. $1.6 billion (that’s the prior year)”

Apex Legends is available as a free-to-download title on the Nintendo Switch. Have you contributed to these earnings? Leave a comment down below.