By Sagar V. Mankar 
In its latest financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, Electronic Arts (EA) has reported impressive performance, with record net bookings of $2.08 billion.
A key highlight of the quarter was the remarkable growth of EA’s flagship life simulation franchise, “The Sims 4.” The company revealed that the game has added more than 15 million players over the past year, bringing its total worldwide player base to over 80 million.
In September, during an interview with Variety, Kate Gorman, EA’s Vice President and General Manager of The Sims franchise, shared that there are currently “no plans” for a Sims sequel, as the team is focused on continuing to expand and update the existing Sims 4 title, which has already accumulated a decade’s worth of gameplay content. The Sims 4 gets its new “Life & Death” expansion pack on October 31.
Alongside the Sims’ success, EA also touted the strength of its football franchises, projecting that its “Madden” and “College Football” titles will cross a combined $1 billion in sales by the end of the current fiscal year in March.
To better reflect the performance of these sports titles, EA announced that going forward, it will be reporting “Madden” and “College Football” figures together under the “American Football” division, while the “EA Sports FC” results will be classified under “Global Football.”
College Football 25 was the top-selling HD title in North America through September 2024.
“EA delivered another strong quarter with record Q2 net bookings, driven by our incredible teams, broad portfolio and technology leadership,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson. “The momentum in our business reinforces our strategic vision to deliver innovative experiences and interactive entertainment that deepens and expands engagement across our global communities.”
Despite these successes, EA also addressed some challenges with its free-to-play first-person shooter, ‘Apex Legends.’ While Apex Legends has proven to be a “compelling franchise” and “industry stalwart,” the recent changes to its Battle Pass offering did not yield the expected boost in monetization, Wilson said during Q&A.
EA acknowledged that to drive significant growth and re-engagement in the competitive free-to-play FPS genre, “large systematic change is required.” The company plans to focus on retention and breadth of content to serve its global Apex Legends community, while exploring more innovative changes in the future.
Notably, Wilson clarified that EA is not currently interested in launching an “Apex Legends 2“, as he believes, historically, “the version two thing has almost never been as successful as the version one thing.” Instead, EA’s focus will be on implementing “meaningful, systematic innovations” to the existing Apex Legends title, alongside continuing to invest in larger, higher-quality seasonal content updates.
Season 23 of Apex Legends started on November 5.