Sorry OP, but your interjections are false equivalencies and conjecture that doesn't line up with current market trends or what we know already. For example, Anthem was hyped to hell, and yet made only $100 on digital game sales, and only $3.5 million from in-game purchases. I doubt it's paid for its marketing yet, let alone its development. Comparing this with Apex Legends, who stealth launched with literally zero marketing, and its $0 in boxed sales and $92 million in in-game purchases alone, paints a very different picture of what both games both need most in order to be successful - player engagement. Apex Legends was made by a smaller team in less than two years, designed to get in on the Battle Royale trend while it was hot. Anthem was in development by a much bigger studio for six years, and designed to stick around for ten years. Based on this, its clear which of these two titles has achieved its goals. Anthem is already being called Bioware's worst game, and the least interesting loot shooter on the market. I doubt anyone at EA or Bioware are happy with Anthem, its performance, or its prospects right now. We know that Bioware, effectively, had
everything riding on Anthem being a huge hit. Because its budget was never confirmed, and given AAA development and marketing cost trends, Anthem could still be a
massive flop.
As for Anthem making an additional $100 million on physical sales, we already know that the breakdown isn't 50/50.
In fact, its closer to 80/20 in favour of digital. So, right now Bioware are most likely at $123.5 million for their first month, and given the word of mouth, they're not going to sell more copies, and unhappy players don't buy a lot of micro-transactions. It likely cost double their first month's sales in development and marketing, and it now has monthly server costs and an-going development cost to account for. With The Division 2 sticking a near-perfect launch, Anthem has strong competition, and no major content or development overhauls until May at the earliest.
In my opinion OP, this article doesn't confirm that Anthem is a success despite a bad launch. It confirms that Anthem had a good marketing campaign, and is failing horribly. Bioware's fate all comes down to how much EA are prepare to sink to re-development the game from the ground up, and how much time they're prepared to give Bioware. Given EA's track history, and Apex Legend's current profits, I doubt Bioware have a long.
