There are news reports going around today about how physical sales of Bioware's Anthem is much worse than their previous title, Mass Effect Andromeda. Nearly all these reports are using the two UK sales metrics, as of February 23, to make this claim, stating that Anthem sold less than 50% the physical copies relative of ME Andromeda. This is a story no doubt, but not big enough to where people are claiming this to be the end of the studio by itself. For one, ME Andromeda had the luxury of being the new entry into the massively popular Mass Effect franchise, which many were desperate for more. Secondly, Anthem is a predominantly online game released in 2019 wherein such games tend to get more digital sales- especially on Origin for PC.
The good news for Anthem (and also EA as well as Bioware) is the game still topped both charts, as seen in the images below courtesy Metro UK. It sold more physical copies compared the other new entries last week- Far Cry: New Dawn and Metro Exodus- in the UK, which tends to be representative of the entire physical sales world too. Indeed, Anthem on the two major consoles were individually also the best sellers too, so there remains hope for the game. Despite mediocre reviews and interest online, perhaps this will be enough for continued support of the game post-release, and for Bioware to get enough momentum to push out more games in the future, and ideally more, better single-player games too.
32 Comments on Anthem Physical Sales Unsurprisingly Worse Than Mass Effect Andromeda
That said even with Origin Premier Anthem was still a very disappointing game, and effectively you could say I indirectly only paid $20-$30 for it as part of the Premier package. I was in an early closed Alpha by chance for Anthem (well before the pre-order alpha/betas), and it did not look good even then, but I held out hope some a late rush on polishing it would fix a lot of it's issues. But seeing it now I think it was still put out a few months too early and it needed a bit more cooking time. That's where things like more variety in missions and gameplay would have been possible, which would have offset some of the complaints about the repetitive quests and shallow missions. Instead it feels like a game that is unfinished and had a lot of potential but fell short. There are quite a few games in that category in the past couple years (FO 76, Anthem, ME Andromeda, etc.).
the combat is boring as crap. one boss fight the lady just stood there getting shot by ten enemies and she didn't die or move, she did eventually, but yeah... maybe she was playing on easy mode or something i dunno. looked boring to me tho, jetpack into air, fire fun, run in half circle, rinse and repeat, boss dead. yawn
The majority of games are digital now, move along.
Personally, I'm happy to ditch physical copies. I'm interested in the game itself, not a bunch of bulky jewel cases that take up a lot of room.
Done playing Warframe, never touch Anthem.
For BF V that I bought at a local Mediamarkt store, I got an empty CD box with just a code inside to download game over Origen store. :rolleyes:
I gotta say although I'm not a multiplayer type,I thorougly enjoyed division,bf1 and battlefront 2.I played hunderds of hours.I was counting on getting anthem,bf5 and division 2 later this year but so far anthem looks very unimpressive to me (would rather replay andromeda frankly),bf5 is almost the same thing as bf1 just prettier graphics and division 2 looks like what recent far cry games were to far cry 3.Same thing,but somehow worse.
I suspect all three I played are still alive and well,so I don't mind playing them some more instead of these new money grabbing schemes.
This is clickbait material boys. New AAA release tops the weekly sales chart. My oh my, call the news. Other reports today: water is wet.