Electronic Arts scores with Facebook – Video Games Update
Electronic Arts (EA) has revealed that advertising on Facebook has paid off for the giant publisher as it made a return of almost 440 percent in game sales.
EA reportedly spend around $2.75 million on advertising the latest first person shooter (FPS) in the battlefield series, Battlefield 3. That’s quite a staggering amount considering the financial situation the publisher is in right now with its share price
being the lowest in over 10 years. But the risk seems to have paid off as advertising Battlefield 3 on Facebook greatly improved the game’s popularity and netted EA a return of 440 percent in revenue from the sales of Battlefield 3.
Battlefield 3 was EA’s answer to Activision’s Call of Duty brand and with a brand new game engine (Frostbite 2), the publisher was hoping that this year Battlefield would finally overthrow Call of Duty, which pales in comparison to Battlefield 3 graphically
and become the King of FPS games.
That however did not turn out to be the case as Modern Warfare 3, not only was the fastest selling game ever, it also broke sales records for every media launch ever. The game has sold over 14 million units on the Xbox 360 alone, which is greater than the
total lifetime sales of Battlefield 3 across all platforms at just over 13 million units and over 12 million on the PS3.
It seems that no matter what EA tries it just can’t compete with Activision but it seems that clever advertising has rewarded EA with a comfortable place in the market. Even though Battlefield is not the top shooter right now, it fared much better than the
majority of the shooter games that go up against COD. The recent news also shows that Battlefield has some long legs as advertisements costing around $2.75 million brought in around $12.1 million from the increased Battlefield 3 sales.
It appears that the success of EA using Facebook for advertising wasn’t a one off case either as it is reported that two thirds out of sixty advertising campaigns on Facebook make back around three times the amount spent. If that’s really the case then EA
should quickly flood Facebook with Star Wars: The Old Republic related advertisements to breathe some life back into the game before it completely sinks.
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