EA admits Apex Legends Season 17 underperformed financially

EA has admitted that Season 17 of Apex Legends, despite eager anticipation from the community at launch, failed to meet expectations in terms of revenue, and that the team at Respawn will take learnings for future seasons.

Ahead of Season 18 releasing on August 8, EA addressed the previous season of Respawn’s battle royale in their August earnings call to investors.

Typically, EA boasts in these earnings calls of continued strong performance from Apex and the Respawn team, but this time, the feedback was a little more sour.

EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson said that while “Apex Legends is one of the strongest franchises and live services in the industry,” Season 17 “did not meet our financial expectations.”

Apex Season 17 falls short of revenue expectations

The EA CEO said that Apex Legends still maintains 18 million active monthly players, but Season 17’s “new variations of gameplay and monetization” were not enough to meet targets.

EA’s CFO, Stuart Canfield, expanded further on the topic of Apex too.

“Apex Legends is a highly successful original IP for EA with a strong community of loyal core players. This quarter, net bookings were below expectations largely driven by underperformance from Season 17.

“As an evergreen live service that is constantly evolving, our teams continue to innovate on content and introduce new modes of play to engage a broader base of players across different geographies. To echo Andrew, we will continue to invest behind the talented team at Respawn to drive long-term expansion and growth of the franchise.”

He also said that they were taking “a more measured approach for Apex Legends as the team applies learnings from Season 17 and introduces new modes of play across various markets.”

Season 17 had a number of collection events, which are typically the big revenue drivers, as players will spend money to open packs to complete the collection, and unlock the heirloom or mythic skin.

But, major complaints about the Ranked system in Season 17 have been cited as the reason for many players playing less over the past few months, which could have a knock-on effect on the money they spend too.

Season 18 of Apex Legends will launch on August 8, and comes with more changes to the Ranked system to hopefully get it back on track.

The new season won’t include a new Legend, but instead a rework to existing character Revenant, now known as Revenant Reborn.