They pulled Battlefield 6 off TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram pre-launch and put the spend into Facebook, Reddit, Inc. and linear TV.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 ran 8x more YouTube impressions.
3x more on Instagram and TikTok.
Battlefield 6 outsold it.
Battlefield 6 outsold every other game released in 2025.
Here's what actually happened.
The creative decision to lean away from short-form video wasn't about avoiding noise. It was about finding the right audience.
Battlefield's target player is an older male gamer with disposable income and a history with the franchise. That person is not primarily on TikTok. They are on Facebook, Reddit, and occasionally watching linear TV.
The platform with the most impressions is not always the platform with the most buyers.
Sensor Tower's analyst put it this way: Electronic Arts (EA) deliberately chose channels with older male audiences with disposable income. The conversion followed.
Most UA teams are allocating spend based on where attention is loudest.
Battlefield's result argues for something different i.e. allocate based on where your specific buyer actually converts.
TikTok and Instagram generate massive impression volume. Impressive dashboards.
The question is whether those impressions are reaching the person who will spend $70 on your game or the person who will watch a clip and scroll on.
EA ran the experiment at scale. The data is in.
I think the lesson isn't "avoid short-form video." It's that platform selection should follow your buyer profile, not the industry's default media plan.
Funding Roundup
Cheer Games raised $4.5M pre-seed, led by Makers Fund, to build new mobile puzzle franchises.
Antihero Studios secured $4.5M in seed funding, co-led by a16z Speedrun and Laton Ventures, to advance development of Misfitz.
Ares Interactive landed a $70M Series A, led by General Catalyst, to build a new generation of free-to-play gaming franchises.
TaleMonster Games closed a $30M Series A, led by Arcadia Gaming Partners and a16z, to scale Match Valley and expand its mobile games portfolio
Did You Know? Angry Birds was rejected by publishers many times before it became a global hit.
Till next time,