US game publisher Electronic Arts to shut down Apex Legends Mobile, a popular title co-developed with China’s Tencent
- The game, co-developed by EA and Tencent’s LightSpeed Studios, the maker of PUBG Mobile, will cease operations on May 1 this year
- The game failed to maintain its momentum, with monthly revenue dropping from US$7 million last May to US$1.4 million in January this year
US video game company Electronic Arts (EA) said it would close its popular title Apex Legends Mobile, co-developed with Chinese gaming giant Tencent Holdings, citing “factors beyond our control”, in a surprise move for a title that gained popularity with users and accolades in the nine months since its launch.
“Following a strong start, the content pipeline for Apex Legends Mobile has begun to fall short of that bar for quality, quantity and cadence,” Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Apex Legends and a subsidiary of EA, said in a statement on its website this week. “It is for this reason, after months of working with our development partner, that we have made the mutual decision to sunset our mobile game.”
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The announcement came as a shock to many Chinese players, as Apex Legends Mobile was one of the world’s most successful mobile games in 2022.
“I just put more than a hundred yuan into the game. I never expected it would be wasted,” said one user on Xiaoheihe, an online community for Chinese gamers.
Launched globally in May 2022 as a mobile adaptation of EA’s hit battle royale game Apex Legends, it was the top downloaded game in Apple’s App Store in 60 countries on the first day of release, according to data from US analytics firm Sensor Tower.
It also garnered some of the biggest awards handed out to mobile titles last year, including the App Store’s iPhone Game of Year and Google Play store’s Best Game award.
However, the game failed to maintain its momentum over time, with monthly revenue dropping from US$7 million last May to US$1.4 million in January this year, according to data from market intelligence service Appmagic.
“I still remember when it was first launched last year, with news about the game all over [social media]. And suddenly it is going to disappear,” said another user on microblogging platform Weibo.
The decision also raised questions about the sustainability of the long-term partnership between gaming giants Tencent and EA, which have collaborated for years on EA titles in China, including The Sims Social and Fifa Online.
EA and Tencent did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The stability of such partnership has become a concern for mainland Chinese players after another US game publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, pulled the plug on its game services in the country following a break-up with its mainland partner NetEase, disappointing millions of players.
