GameStop Claims Poor Sales for 'Star Wars: Battlefront': EA Calls Comments "A Surprise"

Earlier this week, GameStop made claims of poor sales for the much-hyped Star Wars: Battlefront, and EA responded by calling the claims "a surprise."

So if you, like me, have been following gaming news, you may have heard that GamesStop executive Tony Bartel claimed that Star Wars: Battlefront 3 is not selling as well as was expected.

"We're not going to quantify it in terms of actual numbers," Bartel stated, "but we had high expectations that diminished somewhat as it got closer and it failed to hit those lowered expectations."

In response, the EA responded via Peter Moore that "GameStop's comments were interesting and little bit of a surprise to us. There is no weakness that is perceptible yet in the title and I want everybody understand that based on where we think this title is and based on the marketing beats ahead of us, in particular the movie launch over the next two weeks, we feel very comfortable we're going to hit the numbers we've given analysts, investors and Wall Street alike."

Here's the thing, and it includes a bit of a history lesson. Often games with minimal content that rely on DLC haven't been doing as well overall, even when hyped. Look at Evolve. I mistakenly thought it would be a great game, but with the sheer, massive quantity of fairly expensive DLC and the Day-One DLC availability, a lot of gamers were turned off right from the start. The lack of content at launch turned off even more.

When I realized how little was actually included in Star Wars: Battlefront, despite my initial high expectations from the beta, I lost a lot of interest in playing, other than when I need a Star Wars fix. Many gamers like me don't have any interest in slapping down $60 on a bare-bones game requiring another at least $40 to get a season pass in the hopes that the added content will be sufficient. And while it's fun to shoot pesky Rebels, the game doesn't have what it takes for me to invest significant time in it.

Hopefully EA picks up the quality and quantity in their games. Battlefield: Hardline failed hard, and Star Wars: Battlefront 3 may as well if EA doesn't work really hard to make it worth the cost.

So what are your thoughts on Star Wars: Battlefront 3? Tell us in the comments section below!