Welcome to Inside Games Daily, the only gaming news show brave enough to ask, how does GTA 6’s delay affect Battlefield? We may be the only gaming news show brave enough to ask that, but a lone EA investor was also brave enough to ask. And unlike this show, EA actually cares about their investors, so they got an answer. Yeah, they don’t care about us, they care about the investors. Uh, so you’ll likely hear this a lot over the next few months, but Rockstar delayed Grand Theft Auto 6 to May 26th, 2026. So that’s about a year from now. Yep. the delay that sent ripples through the industry, and this is one of them. Video Game Chronicle caught an exchange between an investor and Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson in the Q&A portion of the company’s fiscal year 2025 results. Sidebar, it must be weird to be a CEO of like a major company like EA and get asked about another major company’s delay and be like, you know what, [ __ ] you. This is about EA, not not Take Two. We made billions of dollars. Do you want to know about that? Anyways, uh an investor asked about EA’s position on the competitive landscape of the Battlefield launch window and subsequent performance expectations. Yeah. How is this going to make us more money is essentially that. Yeah. So, Wilson kind of first explained that uh given that the games industry is already hyper competitive and games are really hard to make uh that it’s unlikely that EA or any other company really would be able to adjust their launch timing up even if moving it up would help at this point. Yeah, here’s a quote. Uh, it’s unlikely that if you weren’t already ready for launch in this window, it may be hard to get ready and take advantage of which might be otherwise a less competitive window than we may have anticipated earlier. That’s what Andrew Wilson said. Potentially other sidebar, this is kind of what Battlefield has always done though, right? Like get it out right now this fall. Go, go, go. We’ll patch it later. Seemingly they’ve learned their lesson. And I think Wilson has said that a ton about this particular Battlefield. Uh, and speaking of, he kind of acknowledged what seems pretty obvious now that GTA 6 shifting later and after Battlefield probably better for Battlefield. That would make sense. Uh, EA announced that Battlefield will launch in fiscal year 2026, which ends March 2026. So, you can you can anticipate that the launch of Battlefield will probably be between now and March of next year. Yeah. Now that GTA 6 is in May, it gives Battlefield uh two months, 3 months at least to try and sell the game without competing with GTA. Yeah, Andrew Wilson said, quote, “I think now, without going too far, we believe that window is clearer than it was before, and we feel very good about launching Battlefield in fiscal year 2026.” Mhm. Interesting. All right. Uh this is this is a little more uh contextual, but it’s something that I think also is related to Battlefield. There’s another reason I think we all might want Battlefield to launch a little bit earlier rather than later. Uh games are getting expensive uh quickly, like right now. Nintendo’s going to sell Mario Kart World for $80 retail like we’ve talked about so much. Uh Xbox quickly followed and saying that their game prices would increase to $80 this coming holiday season, which means of course Call of Duty is going to be $80 obviously. Yeah. Yeah. And I think now, especially if you’re an investor and you want your company to make a lot of money for you, you’re probably wondering if they’re going to raise prices, too. But luckily, for the time being, it seems that EA hasn’t caught that price hike fever, which is crazy that EA is not doing that. Um, not yet. That’s a good point. Uh, Video Games Chronicle again with the hot catch here, reporting on a separate Q&A interaction. Yeah. An investor asked EA’s executives if they’d considered the quote pricing power, a phrase that ought to send a shiver through your spine, uh, of the brands in the EA roster and if they, the executives, had considered following other companies and pushing prices up. Andrew Wilson before answering the question as usual, chewed some leather, uh, talked a lot about who knows players and value and all the all the stuff that a CEO would talk about and dedicating to delivering incredible quality and exponential value to our player race, right? Of course. and then said they have reflected no changes in our current strategy at this point. So, they would have in this call, they would have said we’re going to raise prices to $80 and they’re not doing that yet. Yeah, they may still. Uh but it opens up an interesting uh future that I hadn’t really considered. Battlefield has an opportunity to really distinguish itself now, especially if it’s launching next to after being compared to an $80 Call of Duty game. Oh, that’s a really good point. Uh EA announced that Split Fiction, a $50 game with a friend pass, meaning only one person has to buy it, sold nearly 4 million copies. That’s huge. Yeah, we’ve seen this a bit lately. We recently reported on games like Expedition 33 and the Oblivion remaster really taking off at the $50 price point. I would be shocked if if EA did something like that. Maybe it’ll be like a free-to-play plus a $50 campaign plus uh battle pass unlock kind of thing. I don’t know. I I’m curious to get your your thoughts on this, but perhaps EA as a company are learning the value of Vibrance and uh games that are priced to move these days. I hope so. Uh EA’s traditional lines of business have really shriveled. Publisher recently laid off between 300 to 400 roles after EAC, Dragon Age Veilgard, and Apex Legends all fell short of their performance expectations. And that’s after laying off around 670 workers last year in March. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the traditional console AAA microtransactionbased business has been kind of shrinking. Call of Duty though did pretty well this last year. Uh just going back to Battlefield real quick. Uh EA’s expected to fully reveal the game sometime this summer. That’s kind of the word on the street. And like we said, uh they’ve they’ve announced they’re going to launch the game before the end of March 2026. So, uh, how’s how’s the how to get meta with it? How’s the b the Battlefield Battlefield? How’s it looking? I mean, shooters don’t typically launch in the spring. Um, so it’s it’s typically a clean season. I guess this will it the interesting thing that I think maybe I have a little inside track on is from what I’ve heard, they’re going to let this breathe a little bit. So, like I don’t think that they’re going to push this in in the holiday unless they really believe in it. And if they don’t believe in it, then they got a little breathing room, like they could put it out in whatever, January, February, something like that. Um, they like to hit Battlefield likes to hit the holiday season. They usually, they usually release at the holiday season. So, I’m really, really interested to see how the Battlefield Labs testing plays out. Um, there’s been, if you follow Battlefield at all, you’ve probably seen clips of the destruction and you’ve seen clips of the maps and you’ve seen, you know, like clips of a jet flying over and stuff like that for the new game that have come from the Battlefield Labs testing that’s under NDA that you’re not allowed to see, but these are things that are leaking out and most of the response is positive. Most most people are super excited about it from what I’m reading. Uh, so I think that they feel like they’re on the right track. Um that coupled with the full reveal we are going to get cuz Andrew Wilson said this in this summer. I don’t know when it’ll be but uh full reveal this summer. Then maybe in a few months after the reveal we’ll have a game. Uh I am very worried for EA though, Lawrence. I’m very worried for them. Yeah, we’ve seen what happens when service games shrivel on the vine. um whatever the next Battlefield is. I don’t like the idea of it only being playable for maybe like 9 months before before it just doesn’t hit the graph that they need it to and then they just like nope, we’re not going to we’re not not going to sit here and fuel something uh in the hopes that it’ll suddenly turn around. But what what can a a game do these days uh to punch through? I mean, we’ve talked a lot about this. I Bruce is a a a Battlefield Oh, what’s the word? Um enthusiast. No, it’s more than that. I connoisseur kind of enthusiast enthus I’ve been playing the franchise for what almost 25 years now. So, whenever 1942 came out, I was all in. I loved it. So, I have been following this franchise for a long time. Um, and I’ve been I’ll say the same thing that I’ve been saying for years. They need a free-to-play mode. They just need a freeto-play mode. It needs to be like War Zone like they did with War Zone. I and I don’t know if they’ll release with it or if it’ll come after the after the release of the game, but uh that’s the way you break through. That’s how you do it. I wonder what that looks like. I I feel like EA if I were the EA of like 6 to 7 years ago probably wouldn’t want to devalue their premium brand by making it free. But the market is so different now. I mean, Andrew Wilson had even commented on that that the way they make games and and monetize them now is different to even 10 years ago. So, it’s a it’s a rapidly changing world. Uh, what sucks is you have to make a lot of decisions about what your game’s going to be about 5 years before you launch it. So, I I’m I’m kind of trapped between a lot of thoughts here about how the market is now and the decisions they likely made about how to make and distribute this game. I think what would be ideal for it now, and even they might still be talking about the manner that they’re going to launch this thing, is to have some free-to-play access, but then yeah, like a a $50 version of the game that is important, but not so important that you can’t join in without it kind of deal. Um, yeah, maybe some kind of buddy pass that extends to Battlefield where if you buy it, somebody else can like be in your squad and and go through matches with you. Yeah, I’m not sure. Um, I’m sure they’re they have thought of all these things and have tested all of them. So, I’m really excited to see I want the if anything the current market and the way that gamers are and the market is responding to the way that games are priced makes it ultra competitive and it’s certainly rewarding ingenuity and that’s what I’m really excited to see. Lawrence, that’s a really uh interesting and exciting suggestion which is that friend pass thing that I’d never thought about before and would be a fantastic idea for Battlefield especially because you play with a squad. So, it’d be neat to have to be able to bring in another player who plays for free and you could squad up and, you know, whatever played Battlefield for a few hours and then they’re like, “Wow, you know what? I actually dig this game. I maybe I’ll jump in.” Um, my strategy for Battlefield for the last 10 years or whatever has always been the same. Obviously, launch has to be perfect. It It has to be perfect. There’s just no ifs, ands, or buts about this one. Uh, and then from there, there has to be a freetoplay mode. Whether or not it releases with the game or a few months later, sure, fine. Either way is fine. We we know there’s a campaign. So, we we have a campaign as well. So, the campaign will probably be like a an extra $30, whatever. You know, let’s say you pay 50 for the base, 30 for the campaign or 20 for the campaign or whatever it is. Uh then you got your $70 game. If you, you know, if you buy the deluxe edition, 70 or 80, probably hopefully 70 will be the base retail. Then you’ll get Battlefield multiplayer and campaign. And then freeto play mode is whatever. Uh then obviously there’s going to be a battle pass. Everyone’s going to be mad about that, but that’s pretty standard for what Battlefield is and what Call of Duty is. They’ve been doing that for years. It sucks. And the reason that people are mad about that is not because of the money they’re spending. They’re mad about it because the game launches in a terrible state. So when the game launches in a terrible state and then they ask you for more money, that’s stupid. No one’s ever going to do that. Um, so that would be my strategy is uh release well a freeto-play mode campaign pay a little extra for if you want to play the campaign and then you’re off and running. That seemed like it was the model that Delta Force was going to try for. Um, but then they just kind of surprised release the campaign and the campaign was kind of buggy and unfinished. I guess I guess that was kind of a yanking the cord out of the wall situation. Uh, they didn’t want to keep investing in building that product. But I don’t know if that worked out for them. Uh Battlefield might have a little more pull. It certainly probably got the the glitz and glamour that uh EA investment can produce. All I think hopefully the uh the footage of destruction and just the chaos of how that game looks will uh will grab people’s attention. We’ll see. We’ll see, Lawrence. Um I’m really excited to play it cuz I love Battlefield, but I don’t want my franchise to die. And I really do think that if this launches poorly, it’s going to die. And I don’t want that to happen. Yeah. Where does it go from there? Either it it becomes a miniame inside of Fortnite or what it’s weird to see what Activision is doing with Call of Duty. It they Fortnited it. Now it is a it is a host platform for other brands and integrations. Uh you can be [ __ ] Seth Rogan in Call of Duty now. Um fighting Ninja Turtles and Terminators. Who even knows anymore? So, like if that’s the only way for a like console premium shooter to live in modern times, I’m not sure I want to see Battlefield become that either. I don’t think that’s EA’s goal. I think they still want to do, this is weird to say about EA, but I think they still want to do pretty honest business where they just make a shooter and sell it direct to the customer and that’s kind of where the the pipeline of money flows back and forth. But I just don’t know of too many other games that have survived like that these days. Right. Uh that friend pass is a great idea. Uh, I feel like hopefully somebody’s watching this from EA and being like, “Oo, if they haven’t already thought about the Fred Pass,” because that’s a very smart, very smart idea. Um, we’d like to shout out an exceptional Inside Games patron, somebody that supports our Patreon every single month. Seat belt man joins every investor Q&A they possibly can, regardless of what local security has to say about it. That means they attended in person, which is really weird. Bulldozing past the guy standing in front of the Holiday Inn ballroom. I belong in there. Damn it.