Star Wars Zero Company is estimated to have sold 1 million copies, with the majority of those sales coming from Steam.
Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliott took to social media to discuss the performance of Bit Reactor’s Star Wars strategy game, which was developed by former developers of XCOM at Firaxis.
69.9% of those 1 million sales came from Steam, with 19.9% on PlayStation, and 10.2% on Xbox / Xbox PC. Clearly, Steam is where it’s at for Zero Company, which Elliott estimates has generated around $50 million since last month’s launch.
This performance, Elliott said, is “respectable for this genre and during such a crowded period (even with the Star Wars brand attached).”
But does it meet publisher EA’s expectations? The company has yet to issue official sales figures for Zero Company or comment on its commercial performance. Now EA has gone private, it is under no obligation to share revenue figures with the market, so it’s unlikely we’ll find out.
What we do know is that Bit Reactor furloughed “many of its workers” before Zero Company even came out as it reportedly had “run out of most of its money just ahead of the launch of its first game.” Bit Reactor told Game File it was a “difficult decision” made “before it was clear how the launch would go,” insisting it was not influenced by EA or Star Wars rights holder Disney. Game File reported that 80% of Bit Reactor’s staff were furloughed, leaving a skeleton crew to address any post-launch bugs for Zero Company.
“It’s SO GOOD, but it’s niche,” Elliott added. “One thing limiting Zero Company’s sales, as with many Star Wars games, is that it’s only really popular in the West. Of Zero Company’s players, 90% are in North America or Europe, with under 5% in Asia.
“On Steam, the Chinese user reviews sit at 57% positive (versus an 82% global average), with many pointing to the lack of VO and localisation options. Star Wars has never had the pull in Asia that it has in the West, of course. But skipping proper localisation compounds that.”
What happens next? The latest Zero Company patch was released on September 10, but we haven’t heard from the studio since.
IGN’s Star Wars Zero Company review returned a 9/10. We said: “Star Wars Zero Company is an excellent tactical game that does a fantastic job of slathering on the same cinematic look and feel we saw in Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi games, incorporating strong characters and a storyline that’s refreshingly centered on non-Force users and a non-traditional villain.”
Wesley Yin-Poole
Director, News
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].