EA Stock Drops 18% After Investor Relations Call About 'A Difficult Quarter' - MMORPG.com News

SBFord

EA Stock Drops 18% After Investor Relations Call About 'A Difficult Quarter' - MMORPG.com News

EA's investor call took place earlier this week with some surprising admissions from CEO Andrew Wilson. "Q3 was a difficult quarter for Electronic Arts and we did not perform to our expectations." While Battlefield V sold 7.3M copies, it was nearly a million units short of projections largely due to the month-long delay of its release. "Unfortunately the release date meant the game launched deeper into a competitive holiday window," Wilson said.

Read the full story here

Mensur

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Coolit

I'm surprised there was no mention of Belgium and the continuing push back against lootboxes which will clearly effect financials. EA are slippery as ever.

Warlyx

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming this fall , thats all i needed to know :P

Kyleran

Coolit said:

I'm surprised there was no mention of Belgium and the continuing push back against lootboxes which will clearly effect financials. EA are slippery as ever.

When a company can describe the gaming situation in China last year as a nuance, the only consideration Belgium probably got was a short discussion on whether EA should invade and finally establish a "corporate state" futurists often write about.

Kyleran

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Err, perhaps because those really aren't the reasons? Late game delivery, "nuances" in China, the popularity of BR / Fortnite are tangible contributors while the factors you propose had little to do with it. (At least in any way which can be tangibly measured)

Kyleran

Warlyx said:

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming this fall , thats all i needed to know :P

Exhibit A as to why EA doesn't have to concern itself too much about winning player's trust, all it takes is a new release of a favored IP or series and the money rolls in.

Renoaku

EA will likely eventually collapse on itself just like Sony Online Entertainment, or be bought out by another company...

Their use of DRM that turns customers away, the decline from the Original Dragon Age, even SWTOR it's just all going sideways for them.

Even Anthem performance wise right now is horrid plus within a few months I believe the game will be dead anyways personal opinion due to what i've seen in the Demo...

I expect it to drop more than 18%

BlueThunderBear

Warlyx said:

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming this fall , thats all i needed to know :P

Yeah if EA is going to die lets get this game published and patched first. Maybe sell the rights off to some franchises so they dont go down with the ship.

Basically they nees to get thwir affairs in order.

kitarad

Wah they really have a talent for understatements. I hope it gets worse for these loot box companies.

Aeander

Warlyx said:

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming this fall , thats all i needed to know :P

That sounds like a bad thing. Bare in mind, the game was announced, without so much as a trailer to its name, at E3 2018. That isn't a long dev cycle.

MadFrenchie

DMKano said:

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Because it had nothing to do with that - EA has lost fan trust years ago and it made no difference. 

Why? Because masses are a fickle bunch - they will rail on a game company and still play a new game from them (granted the game has to be good enough to buy)

Case in point - Apex Legends - it's an EA title - 1 million players in the first 8 hours.

Do you think masses care about trust and neglect still? 

Majority of those players hate EA... and still they play Apex Legends

While I get your point, too much is being made of that number by preying on our inability to properly contextualize the number.

1 million is only roughly 0.0008% of the total PC gamer base alone.  It's marketing smoke and mirrors aimed at making it seem like it received a lot more social proof than it actually has.  Considering it's multiplatform, and completely free...  It's actually not that impressive that less than 1% of total gamers merely wanted to try it.  We see a big number and forget that almost one-third of the entire human population could now be considered legit "gamers."

In short, if EA thought Apex Legends would save their bottom line...  How do the kids put it?  "This ain't it, Chief."

Aeander

MadFrenchie said:

DMKano said:

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Because it had nothing to do with that - EA has lost fan trust years ago and it made no difference. 

Why? Because masses are a fickle bunch - they will rail on a game company and still play a new game from them (granted the game has to be good enough to buy)

Case in point - Apex Legends - it's an EA title - 1 million players in the first 8 hours.

Do you think masses care about trust and neglect still? 

Majority of those players hate EA... and still they play Apex Legends

While I get your point, too much is being made of that number by preying on our inability to properly contextualize the number.

1 million is only roughly 0.0008% of the total PC gamer base alone.  It's marketing smoke and mirrors aimed at making it seem like it received a lot more social proof than it actually has.  Considering it's multiplatform, and completely free...  It's actually not that impressive that less than 1% of total gamers merely wanted to try it.  We see a big number and forget that almost one-third of the entire human population could now be considered legit "gamers."

In short, if EA thought Apex Legends would save their bottom line...  How do the kids put it?  "This ain't it, Chief."

Right. And of that number, how many are actually going to spend money on the game? 

JeroKane

Warlyx said:

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming this fall , thats all i needed to know :P

You mean "Star Wars Jedi:Full with Lootboxes" is coming this fall ?

Slapshot1188

DMKano said:

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Because it had nothing to do with that - EA has lost fan trust years ago and it made no difference. 

Why? Because masses are a fickle bunch - they will rail on a game company and still play a new game from them (granted the game has to be good enough to buy)

Case in point - Apex Legends - it's an EA title - 1 million players in the first 8 hours.

Do you think masses care about trust and neglect still? 

Majority of those players hate EA... and still they play Apex Legends

It’s not how many jumped in during the first 8 hours.  It’s how much revenue does it generate for EA this year.

I can just speak from personal experience and while I have had Anthem sitting in my shopping cart literally for months... I have not pulled the trigger.  Usually by now I would have done so for FOMO, but I think it’s been replaced with FOGS.... Fear Of Getting Screwed.

JeroKane

DMKano said:

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Because it had nothing to do with that - EA has lost fan trust years ago and it made no difference. 

Why? Because masses are a fickle bunch - they will rail on a game company and still play a new game from them (granted the game has to be good enough to buy)

Case in point - Apex Legends - it's an EA title - 1 million players in the first 8 hours.

Do you think masses care about trust and neglect still? 

Majority of those players hate EA... and still they play Apex Legends

That's because the game is Free2Play. Will always attract a bunch of freeloaders who keep jumping on the next game for a while, before the next comes along and then they jump over to that.

Scot

If your first priority about a release date is how you are going to do that quarter, then you are not releasing only when you have a quality game. How long before everything in EA comes out as early access, have to make those quarter figures?

Now you may say they always have an eye to polish and quality, but did he mention that? Did he say that a gaming company needs to hold a title back to make sure it is good enough? Imagine the pressure for BF4 to release early just to make sure he did not have to get up and say the quarter was bad. This time quality won out, next time?

Also look at why they are confident the rest of the year will be good, all franchises nothing new. This is how you stagnate the gaming industry, "we had a bad quarter, stick to the tried an tested, release nothing new."

Scot

DMKano said:

Mensur said:

Why did he not say the following: "We failed because we completely neglect our fans and we have a hard time earning back their trust"

Because it had nothing to do with that - EA has lost fan trust years ago and it made no difference. 

Why? Because masses are a fickle bunch - they will rail on a game company and still play a new game from them (granted the game has to be good enough to buy)

Case in point - Apex Legends - it's an EA title - 1 million players in the first 8 hours.

Do you think masses care about trust and neglect still? 

Majority of those players hate EA... and still they play Apex Legends

While I agree, I still say vote with your feet. Less hate, more waiting until launch until any money is put in, ignoring demos and so on. EA have been stopped in their tracks before with loot boxes, the consumer always has power just don't over estimate it.

Aeander

I find it weird that a 1 million players trying a free to play game is considered impressive while over 7 million in sales of a $60 game by the same publisher is considered a failure worth dropping stock price over. So which is it?

Nepheth

Aeander said:

I find it weird that a 1 million players trying a free to play game is considered impressive while over 7 million in sales of a $60 game by the same publisher is considered a failure worth dropping stock price over. So which is it?

One of them released without any pr champaign or literally anything at all, is a f2p low budged game. Other one is a high budged game with a huge pr champaign behind it and one of the games which represends EA. One of them is a new game with a huge competition ahaed of itself against the names like Fortnite, PUBG and Blackout and the other one already is a leader in its own genre. One of them sold 7 millions in around 4 months including the preorder numbers and the other one reached 3m players in 24 hours. So which is it?

MadFrenchie

Nepheth said:

Aeander said:

I find it weird that a 1 million players trying a free to play game is considered impressive while over 7 million in sales of a $60 game by the same publisher is considered a failure worth dropping stock price over. So which is it?

One of them released without any pr champaign or literally anything at all, is a f2p low budged game. Other one is a high budged game with a huge pr champaign behind it and one of the games which represends EA. One of them is a new game with a huge competition ahaed of itself against the names like Fortnite, PUBG and Blackout and the other one already is a leader in its own genre. One of them sold 7 millions in around 4 months including the preorder numbers and the other one reached 3m players in 24 hours. So which is it?

3 million lookie-loos, is all you can really prove with registered users.  That's because it's F2P.  How many you think they would've had if they had placed any kind of box price on it?

Thane

if they actually think this was "due to focusing too heavy on the single player content of BF", then they seriously didn't get a shit.

don't sell us your stupid lootboxes. we told ya we don't like it.
you told us "uh you will like it".


so, how did you like that last quarter? bc we think you liked it, EA.

Aeander

I did laugh at them blaming low BF5 sales figures on them having a single player campaign.

Yeah, I'm sure that was the reason, and not that their former CEO arrogantly told customers to "buy it or don't."

EA is a clueless fuckdump of a corporation.

SBFord

Aeander said:

Yeah, I'm sure that was the reason, and not that their former CEO arrogantly told customers to "buy it or don't."

I don't get why that gets people so bent out of shape. In the end, EVERY game that is potentially of interest to someone  is "buy it or don't". Don't like the direction it's going? Don't buy it. Pretty simple and something we all do.

I'm no fan of EA but this, out of everything that it's done, is so much ado about literally nothing. I guess people didn't like the fact that he had the temerity to put words to the fact. *le gasp*

Margrave

Burn baby burn

Aeander

SBFord said:

Aeander said:

Yeah, I'm sure that was the reason, and not that their former CEO arrogantly told customers to "buy it or don't."

I don't get why that gets people so bent out of shape. In the end, EVERY game that is potentially of interest to someone  is "buy it or don't". Don't like the direction it's going? Don't buy it. Pretty simple and something we all do.

I'm no fan of EA but this, out of everything that it's done, is so much ado about literally nothing. I guess people didn't like the fact that he had the temerity to put words to the fact. *le gasp*

The effects of such should be apparent, as he was almost immediately let go.

Anyway, as far as EA goes, I will play their games only if those games are of interest to me (which at this point is basically just Bioware offerings). I can't claim to have ever been in the market for Battlefield to begin with, but I know contempt when I see it, and "like it or don't buy it" isn't a statement that did them any favors.