Despite all of the hype surrounding Star Wars this year, GameStop Corp exec Tony Bartel recently claimed in front of a group of retail investors that Electronic Arts Inc’s highly anticipated Star Wars Battlefront reboot failed to meet the game seller’s expectations. Bartel said that the game was one of three November releases (along with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Halo 5: Guardians) that had “underperformed” this year.

But now EA COO Peter Moore has defended Battlefront, claiming that the game has actually performed quite well and is showing no signs of slowing weakening.

“[GameStop’s] comments were interesting and little bit of a surprise to us particularly as the CFO in the call then started to correct the COO [Bartel] as the call went on,” Moore said (via Eurogamer). “So from our perspective I’m here to reaffirm our guidance of 13m units sold in for the fiscal year.”

Moore also exaplined that the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which hits theaters in just two weeks, will give the game the boost in sales that it needs to meet EA’s original predictions for its performance.

“There is no weakness that is perceptible yet in the title and I want everybody understand that based on where we think this title is and based on the marketing beats ahead of us, in particular the movie launch over the next two weeks, we feel very comfortable we’re going to hit the guidance that we’ve given analysts, investors and Wall Street alike.”

Strong sales, weak reviews

While Star Wars Battlefront may be selling well, at least according to EA, the game has had a lukewarm reception from many reviewers and fans, especially gamers who were fans of the original Star Wars Battlefront and its sequel, which were released over 10 years ago.

The new Battlefront currently holds between a 71 and a 75 on review aggregator Metacritic (depending on the platform), and the user score is even lower, ranging from an abysmal 3.5 to 5.0 out of 10. User ratings on sites like Amazon.com are equally low.

Many reviewers have criticized the game’s lack of depth, comparing it to a Star Wars themed Battlefield (another series published by EA), but without the same level of strategy or competitive play.

Of course, EA does not pay its shareholders with positive review scores, and with a triple-A Star Wars game released immediately before a new film, it seems unlikely that EA will have any trouble meeting its sales quotas.

Image credit: EA, Inc.