Electronic Arts Suffers $45 Million Loss

[Vetta E-dom]

EA's not going the way of THQ.

One can hope though... One can only hope.

It probably wont happen, yeah... but it's nice to think it will.

And put a bunch of talented people out of bisness?

If they have any REAL talent then they will easily be able to find other jobs. Just imagine the day when Bioware is freed from the shackles of EA's dungeon...

It just goes to show; treat your customers like sacks of money that want to steal your work and you end up losing money anyway!

Wow! this post is so ignorant it almost hurts. There is probably a couple thousand of free opening across the spectrum for all those employees to go to right, I mean especially after all those other studio closings this year. But hay lets just forget that those are people with you know lives and family's because you know the only thing that matters is that I get to play more games.

 

[FrozenCones]

It's all going according to plan... >

GOOD GOOD

 

[Elberik]

EA is loosing money to poor business decisions?

 

[TaboriHK]

Stale bread will only continually lose value, a lesson EA should learn sooner rather than later. Aggressive marketing won't change that.

 

[Tumedus]

I don't even think it's just the quality of games that is hurting them, I think its the quality of service. EA's disdain for gamers becomes ever more prevalent with each release. And I know an increasing number of people who have reached their breaking point with the company. Whether its their total lack of respect for their IPs, their poor customer service, their blatant nickel and diming with every product, people are getting fed up.

Attrition is, by its nature, a slow process. But I think at least part of this failure is due to that and not just to a poor economy.

 

[Scorpid]

39 million registered traitors...

 

[Vetta E-dom]

EA's not going the way of THQ.

One can hope though... One can only hope.

It probably wont happen, yeah... but it's nice to think it will.

And put a bunch of talented people out of bisness?

If they have any REAL talent then they will easily be able to find other jobs. Just imagine the day when Bioware is freed from the shackles of EA's dungeon...

It just goes to show; treat your customers like sacks of money that want to steal your work and you end up losing money anyway!

Wow! this post is so ignorant it almost hurts. There is probably a couple thousand of free opening across the spectrum for all those employees to go to right, I mean especially after all those other studio closings this year. But hay lets just forget that those are people with you know lives and family's because you know the only thing that matters is that I get to play more games.

Who says they need a studio? With the recent indie boom thanks to crowd-sourced funding such as Kickstarter anyone with a good idea and the talent to make it happen can make a game and make a decent amount of money from it without having to lose most of the profit to a studio!

Yep and those things take money, things like kick-starter and small Indy games usually mean your not getting paid unless your project makes money. even to create the assets to setup a project mean a couple of months no pay. Not everyone gets the opportunity or has the resources to go make some Indy game, but hay if you have a years salary laying around and can find the right group of people that are willing to work for a year no pay.


Cap; More Money ... Exactly turbo tax, you get it.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Maybe if they made innovative and fun game then we would buy them and like them.....

 

[Scorpid]

EA's not going the way of THQ.

One can hope though... One can only hope.

It probably wont happen, yeah... but it's nice to think it will.

And put a bunch of talented people out of bisness?

If they have any REAL talent then they will easily be able to find other jobs. Just imagine the day when Bioware is freed from the shackles of EA's dungeon...

It just goes to show; treat your customers like sacks of money that want to steal your work and you end up losing money anyway!

Wow! this post is so ignorant it almost hurts. There is probably a couple thousand of free opening across the spectrum for all those employees to go to right, I mean especially after all those other studio closings this year. But hay lets just forget that those are people with you know lives and family's because you know the only thing that matters is that I get to play more games.

Who says they need a studio? With the recent indie boom thanks to crowd-sourced funding such as Kickstarter anyone with a good idea and the talent to make it happen can make a game and make a decent amount of money from it without having to lose most of the profit to a studio!

Yep and those things take money, things like kick-starter and small Indy games usually mean your not getting paid unless your project makes money. even to create the assets to setup a project mean a couple of months no pay. Not everyone gets the opportunity or has the resources to go make some Indy game, but hay if you have a years salary laying around and can find the right group of people that are willing to work for a year no pay.


Cap; More Money ... Exactly turbo tax, you get it.

He's right. Kickstarters most successful video game funding were done by well established studio or video gaming figures. To get an Original Property with some unknown developer you won't be getting games of a triple AAA level. And that doesn't just mean no CoD. It means no GTA's or Mass Effects. It's not a simple matter of Publishers are evil and indies are the future. There is a place for both but EA needs to change its buisness practices regardless (or not, gamers are still the people that give EA their money) and let's hope its sooner rather then later because while I like my indie games there is a reason gaming publishers haven't revisited 2d platformers often after the PS1 and N64 came out.

Also lets not forget Interplay and THQ funded and published some of our favorite video game developers originally.

 

[CaptainKoala]

"The economy hasn't gotten any stronger," EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen told Reuters. "It's a little early for me to know how strong the market's going to be, so based on that we widened our range for revenue for the fourth quarter and brought our guidance down slightly just to make sure we're prudent."

In other words, it's everyone's fault except our own.

Yeah he seemed to have completely ignored the fact that games that connect with what players actually want are thriving in the 'weak economy'.

 

[electric method]

Oooops. EA loses more money. To bad, so sad. This is what happens when a company makes poor business decisions, treats their consumers like ATM's and garbage and spends less on game development than they do on marketing. Seriously, if they wanted to improve revenue a quick fix would be to stop spending insane amounts of money on marketing campaigns for franchises they know to be niche... a la "Dead Space". It's complete idiocy to spend more on TV ads than what they actually spend making the game. This is just one example of totally incompetent management and business.

 

[Zeles]

But have they learned anything?

If I had to condense my frustration with EA down to one phrase, it would be that they've created a corporate culture that seems to despise its own consumers, actively working to ignore any feedback players of their games give them (or at least, to seem as though they do.)

Now that "We know what we're doing, stop talking" mentality seems to stretch to financial reports as well, and it seems like the most they're likely to take away is to stop making games like Warfighter. Well, duh. Did you notice that the built-in fanbase for a Syndicate game was actively against turning it into an FPS? Has it come to your attention that the audience for SimCity is not clamoring for a mandatory social experience? Has it occurred to you that every whisper of resurrecting Ultima (sans Richard Garriott) is another nail in a once-great series's coffin? Have you noticed that every time someone like DeMartini opens their mouth in public, people start reaching for torches and pitchforks?

EA made some great games; hell, I'll admit they still make some great games. But every dollar spent on them is a vote for them continuing their run of self-destructive, consumer-despising idiocy.

Damn. That's... a really really good rant there.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

So their business practices have been upgraded from completely fucking inept to just incompetent.

 

[vxicepickxv]

39 million registered traitors...

I have an Origin account, because a long time ago, I played a product that EA put out and signed up for some service of theirs. That's how they get the number 39 million. They gave me the account without asking for it.

I don't use the account for anything, nor have I bought anything, but I'm still a registered user.

 

[Joey Bolzenius]

Dude, no wonder Warfighter's sales were disappointing, its a stunningly generic first person shooter that is 5 years late to the market. Had EA told the studio to at least try something as daring and different as Bioshock Infinite at least the game would have been unique in some fashion.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

It's like watching a mammoth slowly bleed out.

I swear, everytime EA shows up in an article it's about them fucking up yet again.

 

[Joccaren]

Wrong the market is as strong as ever Blake, its just you guys are making crap games and bad business practices that people want no part in. You can blame it on the economy, the community, the media, everything but what you are doing wrong.

I wouldn't say the market is as strong as ever. 8 years back my family mortgage was close to being paid off. Now its 5 times what it was then, more than it was originally, and still increasing in what we have to repay 'cause the price of everything is going up, but wages aren't by near as much [As an example, kids school fees go up 10% a year, or, with them being 'generous' this year, 5.5%. Tell me who gets more than a 3% annual pay rise each year, which doesn't even cover school fee increases, let alone petrol, food, water, electricity and gas costs]. You can probably tell I'm not going to be spending as much money on games, and the same goes for a LOT of people. We're still not really recovered from the GFC [And if you think we are tell that to my shares >.>], and its not like there's a number of people a bit short on money or anything.
Granted this isn't the only reason for EA's decline in sales. Look at other companies and their games seem to be preferred to EA's, doubtless because of EA's recent releases which have received a rather bad rep, and the fact that they're still insisting on shitty business practices to try and nickel and dime everyone out of their money. The economy certainly has an effect - I would have bought and tried Warfighter just to see for myself how bad it was had I a bunch of spare money to spend - but its certainly not the core of the problem.

This is just like my Google+ account existing since I have a gmail account.

Pretty sure that's not how it works. I had a Gmail account for years, still had to sign up for Google+. It suggested I import all my Gmail contacts, but I didn't actually have a G+ account, despite having a Gmail account. I think Google does that side of things properly.