EA posts net loss in quarter of $308m - apparently good news.

[charlesr]

So because the loss is less than they predicted, this is good news and you should buy shares in EA. No, wait....
Seems like a poor way to run a business, but then maybe it's a function of the console cycle. Do they always make a loss at the end of the cycle and start of the next? I'm not too clued up on this stuff.

[Mr Ono]

It is "good news" if the loss is less than expected by analysts as their shares would have been normalised against expectations.

I don't dabble in gaming stock even though though I have a keen interest in the sector. Tried shares in Game a while ago but they didn't really do much so sold and moved on.

[QualityChimp]

Where's Profit? He'd know the answer!

[nakamura]

I don't think the console cycle had anything to do with it. Two big problems would have been releasing a completely broken version of Battlefield 4 and then releasing a Fifa game that was actually hard to play which would have no doubt alienated the morons that usually play it.
I also think people have become a little tired of substandard yearly franchises like NFS which was wonderfully average this year again.

[Neon Ignition]

They'd probably have less overhead if they stopped picking up studios only to restart or disband them a year later too. They need to get back into kicking off some new ips, every few years they go through an upturn and things look up like when we started getting stuff like Mirrors Edge, Dead Space etc. Then they kills them through bad marketing, over milking and microtransactions. Time for them to clean out house again

[Brad]

Isn't the problem basically that the company is rotten to the core? A massive company that just happens to make games. Back to basics as SF says.

[VR46]

I read somewhere that a lot of that losss was down to the PS3/360 console and software sales tailing off much sharper than they or probably anyone expected. Before the next-gen stuff landed they were in better shape.
Then the BF4 problems and to an extent Fifa stuff was another kick in the balls.

$100M loss per month is a hell of a lot of money in anyones books. Hope it gives them the kick up the arse they've needed for years.

Did they win the "Worst company on the planet" award for the third year in a row in the end?

[Digfox]

I read somewhere that a lot of that losss was down to the PS3/360 console and software sales tailing off much sharper than they or probably anyone expected...

Yes - I saw Patcher the other day on GameTrailers state that sales of software for the 360/PS3 were massively down on previous holiday periods, to the point that pulishers would push MS/Sony to do more (so drop hardware prices and I assume license fees) and if they didn't risk developers reducing support or pulling the plug altogether on support for these machines.

Activision Blizzard are surely going to announce bad financials as well (COD must be massively down on sales given the lack of data to date), Nintendo already have announced further bad results and I'm sure they'll be more publishers struggling.

Link below:
http://www.digital-digest.com/news-6...-February.html

[speedlolita]

Wasn't there articles released the other day stating that the amount of next gen involvement EA had was like 35%? This doesn't bode well if so.

Link: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/28/ba...-last-quarter/

[Guts]

Would anyone actually be sad if EA would just go bankrupt and disappear entirely? I don't particularly hate EA more than anyone else, but just thinking aloud. It would break their monopoly on sports games and free a bunch of talented developers, like BioWare to pursue more interesting games. Would there actually be anything negative if it would happen?

[Brad]

Would anyone actually be sad if EA would just go bankrupt and disappear entirely? I don't particularly hate EA more than anyone else, but just thinking aloud. It would break their monopoly on sports games and free a bunch of talented developers, like BioWare to pursue more interesting games. Would there actually be anything negative if it would happen?

All positive as far as I can tell as long as the developers get signed up by other studios. FIFA license becomes available, as does PGA etc.

[Guts]

Warning! EA hate levels rising...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-06-dungeon-keeper-androids-rating-system-filters-out-1-4-star-reviews

Apparently EA asks people to rate their Dungeon Keeper Android game with 1-5 stars. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? Well, apparently you can only give the game the best rating (5 stars) and not anything else. I wish I was making this up. Can this kind of behavior even be legal? Censoring and altering customer feedback to make your product look better? This is totally rotten.



Also, gotta love the "5-star ratings from you help us provide free updates!"

F*** you, EA.

[Brad]

It's fine to hate EA. After all, they clearly hate us.

[25.05.2005]

Robbie Savage on the cover of the next FIFA then.

Goodbye Messi.

EA Cutbacks.