EA Salt

[Correction]

EA had their earnings call yesterday and people are dissecting the news and drawing conclusions.

"Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3 underperformed":

EA's total Q4 non-GAAP net revenue was $1.04 billion, which was within our guidance. In the quarter, we saw solid sales for SimCity, most notably from direct downloads. However, Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3 came in below our forecast.

"We're no longer spending money on underperforming properties":

Edward S. Williams - BMO Capital Markets U.S.
Just a couple of quick questions. Larry, I was wondering if you and Blake can kind of follow up on your comments with regards to kind of your confidence level in the cost structure as we enter this console transition, given as you pointed out, Larry, that it's been 31 years, you haven't been able to keep costs flat on a year-to-year basis. And then secondly, Frank, if you can tell me a little bit more, just clarify for me a little bit more about Star Wars in terms of which platforms the games actually can be playable on?

Blake J. Jorgensen - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President
Let me start. This is Blake. I'll start with the operating margin question around the console transition. I think as everyone knows, we've given guidance over the last year that we were spending roughly $100 million a year on next-gen development. We've continued to include that in our expenses. What we've done is we've gone through a very detailed process to eliminate expenses associated with products that either aren't growing or aren't large enough or aren't on platforms that we feel are long-term viable in the industry.

Crytek still owns the Crysis IP so they could just get scooped up by another publisher no problem. But Dead Space is unlikely to return.

Also note the "viable platforms" remark. This is basically the end of the relationship between EA and the Wii U + PSVita, in case you thought there was still a pulse there.

[Minions]

Unfortunate. Perhaps they could make some innovative games instead of repeating the same old shit and making it even worse. Sup microtransactions.

[Correction]

Perhaps they could make some innovative games instead of repeating the same old shit and making it even worse.

This is exactly the opposite of what they're going to do until their star wars stuff enters distribution (not until spring 2014) and well after the new consoles are launched. Don't expect Fuse 2, for example.

[Souj]

I think the title should be changed from "EA kills Dead Space..."
to "EA decides to not rape the corpse of Dead Space with another sequel..."
May be just a tad too long though.

[Correction]

I am bound by the constraints of the maximum thread title size...

[Dominico]

What the fuck else do they even have besides Battlefield, Madden and FIFA?

[Ksandra]

What the fuck else do they even have besides Battlefield, Madden and FIFA?

SW

[Brill Weave]

I am disappoint. More so by Dead Space than Crysis.

[Dominico]

Woop, forgot they also have Mass Effect. That'll be dead soon enough at this pace. And I think they said no SW games until 2015 didn't they?

[shidobu]

was only a matter of time.

and Battlefield has 2 more "releases" till it shits the bed too

4 is being released way to early.. "heres new maps and a new weather system" all i've seen thats "new"

[Kaisha]

They also shut down their "EA Partners" label a couple weeks ago.

[The Blackrose]

They also decided to stop licensing weapons manufacturers for their product names to be used in games. But they'll still use the names and such, because "lol, free speech." Expect a lawsuit somewhere down the road.

EDIT: Remember this?

http://www.gameranx.com/img/13-Mar/p...e-response.jpg
http://www.gameranx.com/img/13-Mar/p...-response2.jpg

[Correction]

Woop, forgot they also have Mass Effect. That'll be dead soon enough at this pace. And I think they said no SW games until 2015 didn't they?

During the earnings call they said that there are no SW games scheduled for this fiscal year, which ends April 2014. They are already developing them though.

And it's not as if this culling of titles is a permanent thing. Naturally once Sony and MS's new platforms are established they'll continue growing their IP stable. But as far as other IPs that didn't sell well on current-gen systems you might as well give up hope now (Mirror's Edge, for example).

[Takedown3]

translation: clearing house for room to develop disney star wars games

[Minions]

translation: clearing house for room to develop disney star wars games

With no violence, cause Disney can't have violence!

http://kotaku.com/5979143/disney-ceo...s-if-any-exist

See Starwars 1313 canceled (due to this)

[Katlan]

It's really sad. I loved DS1 and DS2, but i refused to touch DS3 because of the micro-transactions/cash shop (yes, I know its not needed and you can easily play the game w/o it, but fuck EA for even bothering to add that type of crap). I know it turned off me and some other friends from picking up DS3, and I'm positive it turned off a lot of other people from doing the same. so EA can only blame themselves really imo.

I am amused how DS3 and Crysis 3 both underperformed, when they sold nearly twice as much as Sim City 5

[Dominico]

Neat, they also apparently just fired 900 people.

During a conference call discussing its year-end financials yesterday, Electronic Arts revealed that it laid off approximately 900 employees worldwide as part of an "organizational restructuring" initiative.

Emphasizing that its business was in a period of transition due to the coming launch of next-generation consoles, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen announced company-wide plans to "reduce [its] overall headcount by approximately 10 percent," in an attempt to reduce costs. EA employed an estimated 9,000 workers across its studios, according to its last official employee count in March of 2012.

The latest round of layoffs cost EA $16 million in severance payments.

Over the last year, EA announced layoffs in its Los Angeles and Montreal offices, was vague about closures at EA Mobile and shuttered its PopCap Dublin studio. Last month, EA's Origin was restructured, and is now part of the Frank Gibeau-headed EA Labels group.

Electronic Arts has developed a pattern to its layoff practices over the last few years. In May of last year, restructuring-related layoffs cut EA's workforce by an estimated 5 to 10 percent, while around 800 EA employees lost their jobs between 2010 and 2011.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/05/08/ea...restructuring/

[Callisto]

What the fuck else do they even have besides Battlefield, Madden and FIFA?

NHL 14 DAWG

I'd be amazed if they didn't sell off the DS IP, for that matter I'd be surprised if they didn't unload Visceral altogether.

[Weederr33]

It's really sad. I loved DS1 and DS2, but i refused to touch DS3 because of the micro-transactions/cash shop (yes, I know its not needed and you can easily play the game w/o it, but fuck EA for even bothering to add that type of crap). I know it turned off me and some other friends from picking up DS3, and I'm positive it turned off a lot of other people from doing the same. so EA can only blame themselves really imo.

I am amused how DS3 and Crysis 3 both underperformed, when they sold nearly twice as much as Sim City 5

Agreed! I was so disgusted with DS3. I enjoyed the first two. They made horror games fun again. But DS3 was so ridiculous. I mostly disliked all of the weapon building. It took away from the limited amount of weapons you had (not that DS2 did that).

[Callisto]

I am amused how DS3 and Crysis 3 both underperformed, when they sold nearly twice as much as Sim City 5

This is more an issue of overagressive forecasting than underperforming sales(I do sales forecasting/analysis for a living lol, always easier to blame it on the sales guys after the fact). It's their fault for not learning a lesson when they had a kabillion unsold physical copies of DS2 left over that got marked down to $8 a pop after 6 months, they printed far too many copies when they could have relied on direct download more if a smaller stock of physical copies actually sold out. They should be firing their analysts, not their devs.

Also DS3 was a solid game, not perfect and not really relevant to this thread, but still. Most of their 'bad' design choices were do to time restrictions EA placed on Visceral, and a lot of things that people say they didn't like were actually implemented pretty well. Microtransactions, eh, every company is going that route, at least DS3 made it 100% unecessary since all it really did was shave off relatively negligible amounts of time spent farming materials.