Apex Legends' Third Season Was Better Than Its Second; EA Working On China, Mobile Launches

Electronic Arts revealed its financials for its most recent quarter yesterday, and in the accompanying conference call, had some good things to say about Apex Legends' past and future. We've all characterized the game as cooling off following a white-hot start, but CEO Andrew Wilson indicated that the game isn't bottoming out just yet. "Season 3 was bigger than Season 2 with higher peaks in daily active users," Wilson said. COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen called it a "fantastic season," which contributed to the company's "great quarter."

There's plenty more on the horizon, as well. In addition to the ongoing Apex Legends Global Series and the upcoming Season 4, EA and Respawn Entertainment are working with a partner in China to bring the game to that country. That same unnamed partner is working on a mobile version of the game, which is planned for global distribution. Jorgensen said that EA will work with partners to help bring Apex Legends to parts of the world "where a partner can either increase the time to market or help us in markets where we don't necessarily have the ability to go to market ourselves." (We think he meant "decrease," not "increase.")

As for the other major free-to-play game that EA oversees, Star Wars: The Old Republic did get mentioned in the transcript -- once. "Our communities in both Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Star Wars: The Old Republic are thriving as well," said Wilson early in the presentation. There are plenty of other references to "Star Wars" and how well the IP's games are doing, but most of that is related to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which launched in November and sold close to eight million copies.

You can read the transcript of the earnings call on the EA site. Overall, it was a great quarter for EA, as evidenced by the financial results, with total revenue for the year up 15% from the previous year.