6) Electronic Arts
$967 million
In its annual report, Electronic Arts’ CEO Andrew Wilson described fiscal 2017 as a “milestone year” for the publisher, and it certainly recorded some impressive figures. EA generated record net sales and operating cash flow, with a proportionately higher amount of digital sales than usual, as well as increasing profit from live services. Although the publisher’s net income was slightly down in comparison to the previous year, EA noted that 2016’s earnings per share included “an income tax credit due to the reversal of the valuation allowance EA had against its U.S. deferred tax assets.”
EA touted “player engagement” as a driving force behind its record twelve month period. As always, FIFA was a huge contributor to the publisher’s revenue, earnings its place as the number one most bought game in the world for fiscal 2017. In numbers, that equated to 21 million individual users playing the game in some capacity, over half of which took part in FIFA’s new story mode, The Journey.
Numbers were similarly impressive for its other major release, Battlefield 1, that was played by more than 19 million players — a 50% increase over Battlefield 4 in the comparable period. EA also detailed other engagement figures, such as the Q4 average gameplay time per player in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, which reached 162 minutes per day, and monthly active users in Q4 for The Sims 4 increasing 33% year-over-year.
