As part of EA's latest earnings report, CEO Andrew Wilson pretty much said exactly that with the statement - "The launch of Anthem did not meet our expectations." Which, for those that followed the game's launch, doesn't come as a surprise but represents the first official post-launch word from EA regarding Anthem's sales performance.

Still, that doesn't mean it was an outright flop as EA notes that Anthem has seen 150 million hours of play since launch. Without sales figures being reported Andrew Wilson did add that the company remains committed to supporting both the game and BioWare moving forward.

"The team is now very focused on continued improvements to the game," Wilson adds. "And will then bring more content updates and in-game events that will enhance and expand the Anthem experience. We believe in the team at BioWare, and we also believe in what they set out to achieve with this game - building a new IP and melding genres to reach a new audience."

As per recent announcements and speculation the general consensus is that Anthem's post-launch support with primarily come from BioWare Austin with the majority of the team that worked on the initial development moving onto Dragon Age 4.

There was also some exaggeration regarding how much game, in terms of time, there is in Anthem. In regards to the difficulties of developing live service games, Wilson said, "It's not just an EA challenge, it's an industry-wide challenge. You're moving from what was initially a BioWare game which would be somewhere between 40 and 80 hours of offline play to 40 to 80 hours of offline play plus 100 or 200, 300 hours of elder game that happens with millions of other players at scale, online."

In our own play-through of Anthem's campaign including all side quests and missions there was nowhere near 40 to 80 hours. But, it's the sentiment that counts with EA also stating that in future it will look at soft launches and a gradual rollout as opposed to a traditional launch. Anthem of course seems to a specific case, as the project suffered from development issues for years before being rushed for release - as per a recent Kotaku report.